12AX7A-C / ECC83 TAD Premium Selected

Sublime in Croft Integrated

Replaced standard JJ ECC83S and these are a revelation. Really quiet, with a dark background from which instruments appear. The soundstage is amazing, with sounds that I have never heard being placed around the room. More treble and attack than the tube sounding JJs, with better instrument placement. Stringed instruments are very realistic. Comparing with the JJ 903s GP at the same time, and these are better if you like strings and clarity in the presentation.

I play really overdriven Sabbath/Clutch style hard rock, so a lot of single string riffs and barre chords. My amp is a Laney Lionheart L20T-410.

My amp came stock with this TAD 12AX7 tube in the V2 position, and V1/V3 had TAD 7025/ECC83 Premiums. It sounded great, but I wanted to try matching V1 and V2 with the same 12AX7's, so I bought another one of these. It definitely gave it more gain, but the top end became fizzy and lost a lot of definition and smoothness. So I switched V1 back to the 7025/ECC83. I'm now going to buy another 7025/ECC83 for V2.

I do not recommend this tube, at least for my amp. It really loses smoothness and definition to chords.

TAD: Your amp is designed and tuned to a balanced tone which is achieve by the blend of the rather smooth TAD 7025/E83CC tubes in V1 and the more bright RT001 in 2nd stage. Changing V1 to the more bright RT001 obviously isn't what you were looking for. Following your playing style I'd recommend the RT080 7025WA, the RT011 7025S or the stock RT030 7025/E83CC.

Here at Sarno Music Solutions, we manufacture high end vacuum tube preamps and buffers for pedal steel players as well as for other instruments. For the past few years we've really struggled finding a good and reliable 12AX7 and 12AU7. Not only was it proving to be hard to find a good sounding tube, but it was hard to find a reliable and low-microphonic tube. Also, some of our circuits have "cathode followers" in them, and those require that a tube have the proper voltage spec to avoid failure. Many new tubes don't adhere to this critical spec. The TAD preamp tubes are proving to be the answer we were looking for. Not only is the sound superior and ideal for what we do here, but the noise, microphonics, and reliability issues were all beautifully addressed with these tubes.

Thanks TAD!

Brad Sarno

Owner, Sarno Music Solutions

www.sarnomusicsolutions.com

I have fitted three of these to my Laney LC15R dont think 15 watts is enough to play live I run this through th matching Laney cabinet with 2 x 10" speaker's with the new valves from TAD ,it is so clean now.

Thank you very much for the prompt service and delivery..

I Will not hesitate to recommend you to friends and fellow musicians.

Paul Chuter. UK August 2008:

I play classic hard-rock music, close to Black Sabbath from the 80'-90’ and Dio. I use Marshall 6100 LM Anniversary Series, Marshall 1960 AV cab and Gibson Les Paul Custom equipped with Seymour Duncan SH-4 & Alnico II Pro pickups or Fender Stratocaster USA CBS 1978 HSS (alder body and maple neck, no rosewood) equipped with Bill Lawrence L500XL & two L250 pickups.

For a preamp I used to use Marshall ECC83, changed for a while into Groove Tubes GT-ECC83-S. The problem with the GT's - too much gain. It's OK when desired, but I'm looking for more classic and round tone. So I've sold GT's and returned to Marshalls. They did a great job and I wanted similarly sounding tubes for a preamp. In my previous amp - Marshall JCM2000 DSL 100 - I've also tried Sovtek's and JJ's, but I definitely do not like the sound of those. Nothing but scratchy highs, no bottom... TAD’s are very well-balanced, harmonically rich and melodious.

The TAD guys advised me 12AX7-C for the tubes V1 & V3-V7 and HIGHRADE 7025 for the first gain stage tube - V2. And I must say - that's what I was looking for. Even if you know that these are Chinese. I was really impressed of what they did to my tone. The Clean channel is warm and round, very punchy indeed. Crunch channel is transparent and there're so many possibilities of tone shaping. You can adjust short crunch or even suitable tone to play transparent riffs. The Lead channel is killer with those tubes, really fat, round, gluey, creamy, but not screamy. Guitar sings at the solos, but you can also play shredding leads, very selective and full.

So – if you are looking for a balanced round tone with a bit of vintage – these tubes are for you. I think it’s possible to get “metal” sound also. Tone of TAD tubes is very versatile, so keep experimenting to achieve what you desire most. These tubes will give you many possibilities of creating your personal tone.

As for the power tubes the TAD guys advised me a quad of TAD 6L6GC-STR. My amp sounds perfect now - read my review. If necessary write me at abronisz@gmail.com

When I ordered new tubes for my Laney LC30mkII I was very impressed with the better quality tubes from TAD. I was recommended to put the 7025 high grade as the first tube (next to the input). I have to admit the results are very very good, way better than the original tubes from Sovtek (standard factory tubes). By the way I use this amp at home and it is way to loud to get a decent tube sound out of it. So I contacted Laney UK and they 'suggested' (after quite a lot of emails) to take out 2 power tubes (EL84) to give me 15 watts instead of 30 watt. (although they did not recommend it!!)

Anyway real tube amp sound at home !