Tube Rolling - my first time

drumminman

Don't know if this could be considered a tweak, mod whatever, but thethe RCA 12au7 Baldwin organ tubes (differently branded clear tops) I ordered were waiting for me when I arrived home from work yesterday.

Never swapped tubes before so I wasn't sure what to expect. The reason I ordered these is because clear tops are reported by other owners of the linestage I have (an Odyssey Candela) to have great synergy.

Let 'em warm up for an hour and then spun the first CD. WHOA!

The soundstage expanded front to back and side to side by at least 25%, drums have more impact and yet with more subtle tone as well, vocals are richer and smoother. Basically detail is better retrieved on complex passages, and everything sounds more lifelike. My system was sounding great before, but this is a whole other level!

And the outfit I bought them from said they take anywhere from 48-100 hours to burn in and settle down.

I'm totally impressed.

But now I'll have a difficult time separating the changes brought about by the Solen inductors which I haven't written about yet.:rolleyes: I suppose I could swap in the stock tubes, JJ Tesla, but I don't think I want to go backwards!

heiney9

Welcome to the "money pit" or as RT1 says "the rabbit hole".

Tube rolling is a whole lot of fun, it can drain most of your extra cash, but damn is it fun. Partly because of the hunt and research, but mostly because of the differences, sometimes large differences, in sound with different style, brands and types of tubes.

Be sure and do your research, many, many tubes were manufactured in the same place but can have multiple brand labels stamped on them. There is so much to learn but it should be fun.

If you need help deciphering some tubes I can help, I have been like a sponge over the past 1 1/2 years learning, reading, buying, listening, etc as much as I can/could.

To be brutally honest, current productions tubes don't hold a candle to many of the 50's and 60's tubes available out there. JJ's aren't all that great to begin with so I am not surprised at all you've noticed a huge difference.

H9

drumminman

Uh-oh, I think I'm in trouble :eek:

Another way to spend money on the big rig. Thanks for the offer H9, I'd definitely like to pick your brain.

Do you have a favorite tube vendor? I purchased these from Brent Jessee, who was great to work with and has an informative website for us newbies.

heiney9

Brent Jesse has a great rep. I buy from reputable people on Ebay based on feedback, and how well they answer questions and describe their tubes. I don't mind buying used tubes and I buy them at about 50-60% less than Brent Jesse sells them for and I'm OK with taking a risk on Ebay for the savings. I have really only had 1 or 2 issues with bad tubes and both times the situation was corrected w/o an issue.

I do have some tube sellers in Germany I can recommend for the rarer German tubes, but shipping is expensive since they are on another continent.

H9

drumminman

How important is buying matched tubes?

I've read that for the best performance this is important, but I don't have experience using unmatched tubes.

Do you know what they're matched for?

george daniel

I think that matching is more important in/with power output tubes than smaller signal tubes.

drumminman

These clear tops are truly amazing. Rolling them in is one of the best tweaks I've ever done.

I feel like they're letting me hear all that the 2.3TL's can do.

Well that and all the other stuff I've done to them

george daniel

The earlier RCA Cleartops have a following,and many a good tube has been had from an organ pull.Congrats.

heiney9

Organ tubes in general are among the quietest because they were screened for low noise before being added to the organ amp.

Signal tube matching isn't as important in my experience, it's nice to have them tightly matched if possible, but I wouldn't spend a lot of extra money for a pair that is tightly matched. I have tubes tubes whose triodes are as much as 20% different and I have yet to detect a real difference. 10% is the norm.

Power tubes should be matched if possible but if your power section has auto bias or manual bias it's not as important because you can adjust. A fixed bias power section should have matched tubes.

YMMV

H9

chargerman426

Welcome to the world of tube rolling man! Its fun and if you wait and look around won't be to expensive. It can be very additive especially if you like to change the sound of your system around. I got bored with my systems for a while thats why I got into tube rolling. Than one day I just found something that just sounded great and I have been using that for a while now. As mentioned above Brent Jesse has a very informative page. I've never bought anything from him as I think his prices are high but that my own opinion. Enjoy the ride and use the search tool/ask question a lot of folks on her have spent a lot of $ on tubes over the years and have there own opinions as to how things sound.

inspiredsports

Your cherry is broken :biggrin:

Welcome Aboard!