Electro Harmonix 6922 pre-amp tubes

In my amps/pres the JJ were the best sounding Current Production as well.

What preamp? If it's the least be "hard" on the tubes, the JJ's will be a nightmare. I will agree that they are the best sounding current production, but they have a horrible failure rate if pushed in the slightest.

The EH 6922's are my current production tube of choice in my Bottlehead phono preamp although I prefer some NOS Tesla's from the 70's with some cartriges.

Has anyone compared the EH to Sovtek 6922s? i will need to be replacing the 8 6922s in my phonostage at some point, and dont want to go the NOS route.

I used the JJs in the Ars Sonum integrated where they present no reliability problems. If driving tubes hard is a problem, I would try the Russian 6H23s sold by Upscale Audio, they were recommended for the AI 3A and older CAT preamps which have a reputation for being hard on tubes (don't if that reputation is deserved or not).

Tom, FWIW I just finished playing with some EH's and Sovteks in my ARC SP10II as well as EH's and Sovteks in two different CDP's. Bottom line - IMHO of course - the Sovteks are more linear than the EH's but have no added warmth. The EH's can sound pretty good if you need some added sparkle and some more bass in an otherwise warmish system.

My re-introduction of my SP10II into my system caused me to change out the EH's from the Raysonic for a warmer tube, a Tesla 6922. And removal of Tesla's from a BAT DK5 and insertion of Sovteks as they were too warm. Two considerations must be made in valuing these comments. Both the ARC and the BAT use(d) Sovteks as OEM. The Raysonic used EH's.

Most folks don't care for the Sovteks that much, and if you don't need their 'ruggedness' as I do in my SP10, they will usually look for some good NOS Seimans or Tele's for clarity, linearity, and tone, or Amperex's if you want some warmth. But they are expensive and not easy to find.

Hope that helps a bit.