Recommendations for rolling tubes on Luxman SQ-N10?
Check out Brent Jessee's site, audio tubes. Just click on the tube you have and read his take on the stock he has (which is constantly updated). It's even broken down to price points. When you narrow it down, give him a call and see what he thinks and if he has anything new that hasn't been updated on his site. It can be your first and last stop for tubes and advice. All the best, Nonoise |
Thanks Nonoise. I'm not really looking to see what different types of tubes there are out there, but rather, which ones have been tried out on this specific amp. More specifically, I'm wondering if there has been any benefit to rolling the EL84 tubes, as I haven't had much experience doing that with cathode biased amps. Most of my tube rolling experience has been with 12AX7 / ECC83 and 6DJ8. |
You will hear a more noticeable improvement by changing out the ECC82 (12AU7) and ECC83 (12AX7) tubes than the EL84. You’ll have a hard time finding someone else with your identical system. Someone with the same amp and tubes will sound completely different to yours. And if you’re using NOS tubes, there is a wide variation between batches of the same tube. All you can do is listen to the tube in your system and make a determination if you like it or not. That’s the maddening part of tube rolling - your mileage will always vary! For ECC83/12AX7, my favourites are: Shuguang Custom 12AX7 LS (black bottle) Mazda Chrome Plate ECC83 (getting pricey now) Telefunken ECC803S (very hard to find now, v. expensive with lots of fakes out there) For ECC82/12AU7: Psvane 12AU7-TII Amperex BugleBoy 7316 GE Triple Mica Blackplate 5814A Telefunken ECC802S (same caveat as the 803S’) |
