Josh O
Member
- Messages
- 4,300
After doing some experimenting at band practice last night and borrowing some of the precious original 12AX7s from my Fender Brown Princeton, I've settled on the following setup:
V1 - '62 GE 7025/12AX7 from my Fender
V2 - stock Sovtek
V3 - stock Koch
V4 - EH 12AX7
I A/B/C'd the stock Koch tube, the GE and an Amperex ECC83/12AX7 in the V1 position ( it's in the V2 position of my Fender) and the GE was the best of both worlds. It offered great cleans that the stock Koch tube did but it sounded a bit fuller and warmer and also offered a little grit when I really ground out a chord in the bridge position, something the Amperex did too much of (really lost that great clean) and the stock tube didn't do enough. Knowing that the Amperex had some more grit to it than the stock Koch tube did in V1, I tried the Amperex in V3. It cut some gain back actually and it introduced more hum when I had Channel 2 with boost selected. So, stock Koch and Sovtek combo can stay, I like the Channel 2 sounds I'm getting now.
The biggest delight/surprise was the power amp setting. I had a great dirty tube tone dialed in witih Channel 1 for one of our songs that I always used Channel 2 with boost for. Holy moly, it sounded phenomenal, I used my neck pickup in my TCM with the the tone rolled back a little and creamy OD heaven. I also for the first time introduced in the boost/gain switch on my Tonebone Switchbone with this. I never use the boost on it but boy am I glad I did, it just pushed that creamy OD into interstellar overdrive!!
Consider me one very happy camper. Plus, now it gives me an excuse to buy some tubes from Mike at KCA to repelenish what I stole from my Fender!!!!

V1 - '62 GE 7025/12AX7 from my Fender
V2 - stock Sovtek
V3 - stock Koch
V4 - EH 12AX7
I A/B/C'd the stock Koch tube, the GE and an Amperex ECC83/12AX7 in the V1 position ( it's in the V2 position of my Fender) and the GE was the best of both worlds. It offered great cleans that the stock Koch tube did but it sounded a bit fuller and warmer and also offered a little grit when I really ground out a chord in the bridge position, something the Amperex did too much of (really lost that great clean) and the stock tube didn't do enough. Knowing that the Amperex had some more grit to it than the stock Koch tube did in V1, I tried the Amperex in V3. It cut some gain back actually and it introduced more hum when I had Channel 2 with boost selected. So, stock Koch and Sovtek combo can stay, I like the Channel 2 sounds I'm getting now.
The biggest delight/surprise was the power amp setting. I had a great dirty tube tone dialed in witih Channel 1 for one of our songs that I always used Channel 2 with boost for. Holy moly, it sounded phenomenal, I used my neck pickup in my TCM with the the tone rolled back a little and creamy OD heaven. I also for the first time introduced in the boost/gain switch on my Tonebone Switchbone with this. I never use the boost on it but boy am I glad I did, it just pushed that creamy OD into interstellar overdrive!!
Consider me one very happy camper. Plus, now it gives me an excuse to buy some tubes from Mike at KCA to repelenish what I stole from my Fender!!!!
