6SN7 Tung Sol Reissue Mullard 12AX7 any comments?


Does anybody have any experience with re-issue Tung SOl 6SN7's??
How about re issued Mullards 12AX7's.
They're being copied to the smallest details (they say) or the opriginals in original Reflektor Plant in russia.
Just wantd to now If I should stop looking to spend small fortunes on NOS.
Are these guys a solution??
KT-88 GEC being copied also Golden Lions, any thoughts.
I headrd the guys at Sophia ELEctrric (famous for their 300B tube) are bringing form Shuguang a copy of teh GEC that kiks butt . .. .
I'm using their awesome KT-88-98 and like it very much so. . . the promise of something even better is very appealing to me, especially when looking at original GEC tubes beaten to a pulp by MacIntosh amplifiers for sale for many hundreds of buck sometimes even K$ . . .
Your thoughts are appreciated.
Wanted to give you a heads up on the new generation of chinese amplifiers tubed they are a fantastic value at their current prices, just make sure use them with a variac adn to 110 VOLts otherwise tube plate voltage is too high and destroys tubes in months.
my grid here is 119 to 124 volts and that is too much for these amps.

Thanks for the help;
God Bless!

Gonzalo
128x128gonzalo
I got them from TubeStore.com. TubeDepot has them also; both sell them for $15.00 each. How often do you typically replace tubes? I'm really wondering how much of what I heard was due to the age of the ElectroHarmonix tubes. If you try them out, let us know how they compare to your vintage tubes.
As we all sould know tubes are curcuit dependant.I have treid them all,including NOS Amerex Bugle Boys.In my Audio Research SP16 alomg with Sunfire Signature tube imulated 625 watts,BW 801,3s,You aint heard nothing yet.This is the tube curcuit combo of a life time.Rich tube lush voice,double 3d sound stage,good bass,each instriment featured or not ,its there with vibrance and glimmer.No end to the mid range.And Im not dreaming but still inching myself. In tube land its all about it all not just the tube.
Mullard reissue 12ax7 As we all sould know tubes are curcuit dependant.I have treid them all,including NOS Amerex Bugle Boys.In my Audio Research SP16 alomg with Sunfire Signature tube imulated 625 watts,BW 801,3s,You aint heard nothing yet.This is the tube curcuit combo of a life time.Rich tube lush voice,double 3d sound stage,good bass,each instriment featured or not ,its there with vibrance and glimmer.No end to the mid range.And Im not dreaming but still inching myself. In tube land its all about it all not just the tube.
I have been using the Tung-Sol re-issue 6SN7s now for several months in my Supratek Chenin preamp. This weekend while listening with my wife I decided to swap the EH tubes back in to see if she and I would notice the difference. It was very apparent that the tubes were different. The EH tubes were more pronounced in the bass and MUCH hotter in the highs than the Tung-Sols. We both preferred the sound of the Tung-Sols, mainly because the EHs made our ears hurt due to the over-emphasis in the highs - I actually preferred the EH bass, but not so much that I would accept the highs. The Tung-Sol mids were clearly superior to those of the EHs. Neither is perfect, however.
OK Gang after a few years of experimenting much time and re$ources . . . I arive to soem clear conclussions.
There si no reissue that will take teh place of a good NOS.
Though must confess that Tung-Sol reissue are decent, they're not great nor wonderful.
I have bought tried tested and played with dozens of NOS types too many to list here but it shall suffice to say that i will list them in order of my personal prefference granted that every tube sound different in teh context of different gear even interactions and synergy (or lack thereof)with the otehr tubes in the system, be power tubes, driver tubes and pre tubes, phase splitter tubes, etc. also rectification tubes also influnece greatly.

So here we go:
1- Tong-Sol round plate black glass (1940's)best overall
does everything right tube

2- RCA gray glass (1940's)very close to TS sweeter mids
slight softness in the bass but lots of detail.

3- Ken Rad parellel plates ribbed clear tops 1940's does
everything right more and tighter bass than TS.

4- Raytheon ribbed plates extra support rods in front of
the plates unknown year but presumed early 1950's.

5- Sylvania chrome domes and bad boys 1950's

6- Tung-Sol tall bottles black plates black bases top halo
getter or harp shape getter.

7- just as good as teh Sylvanias and teh Tung-Sols tall
bottle come the Russian 6H8C NOS 1950's only the NOS
tubes they present an absolute wonderful bass celar and
airy top end a slight forward mids nto as sweet as the
Tung Sols or RCA's. Warning: newer tubes are same as EH
8- GE 1950's and early 60's (GTA GTB)not as refined as the
RCA's and TS but definetely not a sloucha dn will easily
better any new production tube.

Recent production tubes TS better than CHinese recent production tubes older production tubes sound pretty decent actually this is true for the 6SN7 only.