Nahhhhhh! Can't be! It's Chinese. it's in Asia!

(this is tongue in cheek).

@ mcinku


Sez the tiny mouse to a real lion of tone...after much forethought and thankful patience in time, waiting for others here to post, ...................................................................

;~)

Respect to you first of all...

...Beg to politely disagree about the need to tweak circuits of a particular amp after subbing so called NOS tubes... also your opinion about un-aford-ability of same...true NOS is unwelcome, they need to be broken in at least to offer their best, just like burning in amp parts, then they aren't NOS anymore.  VOS (vintage old stock) far better IMO.  Stick them in and listen, if you don't like lots, yank and sub again, just like certain parts for certain places, like tone caps and resistor types for instance.

Umm,

Have read in Merlin's book (yep, I bought it and am glad) and yep, it's more than a bit above my admittedly tiny but tone oriented brain to digest... the idea in his pages about (paraphrasing) tube rolling  not very important compared to circuit design and measurement of actual voltages/currents in circuit,

well, yep, up to a certain point, and then...

I disagree, strongly. 

Selecting certain vintage tubes for certain roles in exquisitively fabricated circuits is the other side, like the frosting within and upon a fantastically prepared layer cake for a special and wonderful wedding of tone, a small part of the whole production, just like a wedding...which can be compared to a Dumble type circuit as...

the sacred or not so...act of playing elecrtric guitar, as if on stage, whether for one in you home or an audience of millions.   Hope that guitar is well set up and the rest of the chain is deserving of that amp!

Am I right in my assumption that that you know where to get the very "Holy Grail" amp building components that you and a few score of others on this planet desire and know about to derive awesome tones for a given circuit?  That knowledge HAD to come from EXTENSIVE research and practice, that is after all, the real guts of science even if derived from not perfectly executed scientific protocol, right?

Well, how about the idea that the vintage old stock (NOT brand spanking new!) tubes chosen for certain spots within those exquisite circuits are helping to build that special wedding cake?  And that there are general tendencies for those tubes to behave within certain circuit environments just like those chosen components tend to do as well?

They can be found, easily.  But it also takes time, some money, and personal experiences to build up the synergy between well chosen tobes, well chosen parts, lead dress and circuit measurements, to help build that cake of tone.

They are affordable, period.    But getting to that affordable place takes lots of experiences and research, and yes spending money for better and worse, another inexact science fo sho.

Yep, the worm can has been spilled, for intention of good.  mcinku, i welcome PM or public discourse.  You are a hero for all here, also to me IMHO.

Peace.

I think I share Mckinku's approach
This will depend on your personal situation, i.e. how many amps you have, and how much you enjoy tweaking amps.
At my current stage, money to buy amps is not a struggle, so I have 15 now (sorry, I was playing 7 years before I got my first valve amp, so it's only fair)
When you have a few, you try to tweak each one to make it suit you, once I find the most inspiring tone, after trying the valves I have in stock, I leave it alone, or I buy some more to try. For me, often the change involves using a lower gain valve here or there. Sometimes a valve sounds rubbish in one amp or one position in the amp.

For amps that do not bring me joy, I move them on to someone else - I give up trying different valves in them.
I can see that someone might choose to tweak a favourite amp to a finer level with rare vintage valves, but to me it's about having an instrument (amp+guitar) that inspires and takes me somewhere else, so when I get to that point, I play.
I know some carry around different valve sets for different gigs, but for me, each amp has its own character, which you can  temper a little with different valve types, but I think the amp type, valve type, guitar and pickups offer enough variation for me, although I can see that finer-tuning with NOS would offer some more options, I believe that for me, plugging in a different guitar will offer more still

None of this is meant as a criticism, I want to know what each of my amps can deliver, tune that a little if needed (in a repeatable way), and then play. I can see that a little extra can be achieved with extensive trials with different tubes, but once the amp is inspirational, that's mission accomplished for me and being able to repeat it is attractive, so I too usually stick to new valves (although I do have a few old EF86s and 5751s)

Cheers
Tone

I have to update mine a bit. I swapped JJ's into V1 & V2 and moved one of the GE Long Plate 12AX7's in to the PI Spot in my Bluesmaster. Marked improvement in tone, surprisingly enough. It seems the old Long Plates were a little to warm and dark for the Bluesmaster Circuit. I may try some Telefunkin's or GE Short Plates in there at some point to see how they compare, but at this point, I am thoroughly surprised by the JJ's, so much so that I swapped the Weber 1265's back in, and fell in love with them again! I still run either TAD 6L6WGC's or JAN Phillips 6L6WGB's, depending on what kind of mood I'm in...

@212 I,ve been keeping my eyes out for Amperex Bugle Boys for a while now, just never seem to have the money when they come up, darn the luck. I am quite pleased and still surprised by how good the JJ's sound in there. I never would have believed it.

I just ordered two ANOS Telefunken ECC83s with ribbed plates from Mike at KCA, we'll see how they sound! If they sound good i may pick up a few more, if they are still available. I wish i had a bit more knowledge so i could change out the tone stack components to shape my tone, but i don't, so i am and always have been an old school tube swapper  i'll let ya'll know how it goes!

Gregg

Earlier this week i did some voltage testing with various preamp tubes i the HRM Bypassed Bluesmaster which i will post tomorrow after i finish the last round of testining. I also did some twiddling and fiddling with bias on the power tubes and found that the ideal bias for my rig running the TAD 6L6WGC-STR's at 445 volts is 36.6 mA. Very balanced at that setting, and no farty bass and no honkiness. Seems that these tubes like to be run a lil cooler than 70% to sound their best. I also found that my PI trimmer sounds best with between a 7-8 volt swing between V3a and V3b much more bloom and sustain. very cool. I was very happy. I was running my GE Long Plate in V1, A JJ in V2, and a GT12AX7R (Basically a higher grade sovtek 12AX7WA) in PI and all was right with the world.

And then today...

I installed a ribbed Telefunken in V1 and a JAN GE 5751 in V2 and did some noodling this morning. All i can say is wow! The sound coming out of this thing on the clean channel is amazing now! Much brighter, but that's not all, much more balanced, detailed and focused throughout the frequency range. The highs and upper mids are so much more present i can back the treble and prescence controls back and still have some shimmer, and that's with my dark les paul!

The 5751 in V2 helps with the volume jump caused by bypassing the HRM circuit and also smooths out the OD even further (Bypassing the HRM smooths it out alot). It rounds the tone out quite a bit and just really offers a nice balanced OD tone whether in standard OD, PAB, Mega PAB, or using a Boosta Grande or other clean boost. It makes the amp very very versatile and I can highly recommend the Telefunken for V1 for BM amps, and the combo of the Telefunken in V1 and JAN GE 5751 in V2 for those who have bypassed their HRM tonestack.

I will do some further playing this weekend to get some more impressions, but my intial impressions (harmony central style )  are very positive!!