ruby 12ax7-c tubes

Hi All
Ive just got a Marsh 6g6b Bassman Head delivered to England. Its got Tungsol 5881 power tubes but the preamp tubes are JJecc83. Id like to swap these for the Chinese Ruby 12ax7-c tubes but cant find any in England. Are they still being produced or do I need to find an equivalent tube and if so, which should I get? Many thanks for any help chaps

booty wrote:

Hi All
Ive just got a Marsh 6g6b Bassman Head delivered to England. Its got Tungsol 5881 power tubes but the preamp tubes are JJecc83. Id like to swap these for the Chinese Ruby 12ax7-c tubes but cant find any in England. Are they still being produced or do I need to find an equivalent tube and if so, which should I get? Many thanks for any help chaps

Congrats!
How is the amp?

I just ordered some chinese from here:
http://thetubestore.com/chinese12ax7.html

Thanx for the link - its interesting that they say groove tube have rebranded the chinese 12ax7 cos I could probably get them in England and save on shipping so thanx again thats really helpful.
The Marsh amp is brilliant -im really pleased with it and I also bought a great cab to go with it - a blonde vibroking cab - they come loaded with 2x celestion v30's, their the right ohmage for the Marsh and they're not too heavy. With my gretsch and my nocturne pedal it sounds awesome and i reckon the right preamp tubes will be the icing on the cake.

booty wrote:

Thanx for the link - its interesting that they say groove tube have rebranded the chinese 12ax7 cos I could probably get them in England and save on shipping so thanx again thats really helpful.
The Marsh amp is brilliant -im really pleased with it and I also bought a great cab to go with it - a blonde vibroking cab - they come loaded with 2x celestion v30's, their the right ohmage for the Marsh and they're not too heavy. With my gretsch and my nocturne pedal it sounds awesome and i reckon the right preamp tubes will be the icing on the cake.

Did you get the vibroking cab from Marsh as well?

you want the right chinese tubes though.. high gain but lower noise
than most and least likely of the chinese to go microphonic.. These
are not meant to last forever, but rather kick ass and take names.
Ruby Tube 12AX7A-C5
is the
tube you want.


"ruby" these are distributed by magicparts.com you can find the
dealer list for europe here:
http://www.magicparts.com/dlrinfo.htm

I got the vibroking cab from an english company cos I didnt want to pay shipping and import tax on the Marsh cab. I emailed tavo and he gave me a couple of suggestions - one idea was to get a fender supersonic cab but they are quite heavy and the the other suggestion was the vibroking which tavo has and he really likes so I ordered one locally thinking it only came in black and was extremely suprised and pleased when the guy said " ..black or blonde ?" so obviously I got the blonde and apart from the grill cloth being being brown, its exactly the same colour blonde cab as the Marsh and it sounds ace! so check em out. So thanks and also thanks tavo for the Ruby tubes link.
p.s When I learn how to attach a photo I will post one of my rig.

booty wrote:

I got the vibroking cab from an english company cos I didnt want to pay shipping and import tax on the Marsh cab. I emailed tavo and he gave me a couple of suggestions - one idea was to get a fender supersonic cab but they are quite heavy and the the other suggestion was the vibroking which tavo has and he really likes so I ordered one locally thinking it only came in black and was extremely suprised and pleased when the guy said " ..black or blonde ?" so obviously I got the blonde and apart from the grill cloth being being brown, its exactly the same colour blonde cab as the Marsh and it sounds ace! so check em out. So thanks and also thanks tavo for the Ruby tubes link.
p.s When I learn how to attach a photo I will post one of my rig.

Awesome!! Its nice that those vibroking cabs have V30s in a 4 ohm load straight stock!
You should post a link for getting those cabs, they are no longer avail. round here.

btw..click the icon for hosting pict from your hardrive, when its loaded it will give you
a link to post in this forum window..done.

ps. I "had" 2 vibroking cabs(had to pay bills). Now I have a fender custom shop blonde tonemaster cab and I changed the oxblood grill cloth for NOS 63' gold grill cloth, and the other is a stock bassman cab in black

Hi
I got my blonde vibroking cab from this company:

http://www.instruments2go.co.uk/Fender-VK-212B-Speaker-Enclosure-p-2723.html

btw ta Tavo for the 'magicparts' uk distributors tube link but unfortunatley they only sell to dealers
but Ive managed to find this company in the uk that sell Ruby tubes;

http://www.hartnollguitars.co.uk/products.asp?id=1323

There's no mention of the ' -c5 ' but dya think these are the ones?

Hi Booty

I'm down here in Australia but I generally get my valves (tubes) from Dougs Tubes.
He appears to have the Ruby 12AX7AC5 in stock:

DOUGS TUBES


Cheers
John

btw..click the icon for hosting pict from your hardrive, when its loaded it will give you
a link to post in this forum window..done.

which icon? sorry but im new to this

please ignore my last post - sorry

booty wrote:

Hi
I got my blonde vibroking cab from this company:

http://www.instruments2go.co.uk/Fender-VK-212B-Speaker-Enclosure-p-2723.html

Does this company custom made them in blonde?
I thought they were only made in black from fender.

yes they are made by fender. Its weird cos thers no adverts for them anywhere. I was prepared to order a black one and the sales guy asked me if I wanted it black or blonde. Since then the only place I ve seen them mentioned is here but has JBL speakers whereas the stock one comes with celestion v30's
http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/equipment/guitar/equip-fendervibroking.html

Ill post a picture as soon as I can figure how to do it

knudi wrote:

booty wrote:

Hi
I got my blonde vibroking cab from this company:

http://www.instruments2go.co.uk/Fender-VK-212B-Speaker-Enclosure-p-2723.html

Does this company custom made them in blonde?
I thought they were only made in black from fender.

At the NAMM show they are mostly black and blonde BUT I have seen them
in sunburst maple hardwood, transparent turquoise, vintage mary kay,etc..
Online black seems to be the prevalent color, I believe blonde was a first
issue around the time they were building my tonemaster cab as it has the
badge on the back that reads" fender custom shop, scottsdale, AZ".
I dont think the black ones say that but I can attest that they are the same build, just
like the supersonic cabs that are just spillover from unsold tonemaster cabs.
The Tonemaster/supersonic build is my uber fav., something about front loading the speaker seems to add a tighter low end. my 60s bassman cab has more of a fat grunt to
it when I play the neck pos. pkup of my SSU. Makes me wish I owned
a Jazzmaster sporting tvjones powertrons.

if you can find a blonde supersonic cab, its ready to go other than swapping in 2 8ohm
celestion v30s instead of its stock dual 16ohm speakers (bassman wants a 4ohm load).
As well these "china" built celestion V30s are not the same speaker as the "ipswitch"
English built V30s. freakin Celestion recently moved all production over to china except for the topshelf Vox blue/gold alnico and heritage series speakers.

ps. thanks for that vibroking link

BTW... 4hrs left on ebay for this Vibroking unloaded cab now at $213.. its in Illinois?
http://cgi.ebay.com/fender-vibro-king-extention-cab-empty-VK-212B_W0QQitemZ110474207916QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item19b8c6a2ac

greetings Tavo
dya think these tubes will be ok:
http://www.hartnollguitars.co.uk/products.asp?id=1323

booty wrote:

greetings Tavo
dya think these tubes will be ok:
http://www.hartnollguitars.co.uk/products.asp?id=1323

chinese tubes in general seem to get a bad rap because the tolerances in
production are too broad and thus these tubes tend to go microphonic too
early and no one wants to use them in the amp manufacturing biz, so they stick to sucky
Sovtek milktoast tubes because they are reliable like a city bus.
This doesnt mean they are wrong to use and not a proper application..

The reason I specify the Ruby 12ax7a-C5 is because Ruby works to
have a chinese tube that meets highest standards. The current
C5 version is in stock most places but the C7 is coming soon.

All to say call the store and have them verifiy the sticker on the tube itself
that has the "C5" suffix. I love the gain characteristic of this tube and it pushes
the amp in the upper mids better, yielding that distinct Clip.

Truly.. you could drop in JJ/tesla ECC83's and be happy as a clam, but if you are
"chasing" the sound, I can say I find it in these specific tubes and when I swap them
in and start strummin my Gretsch in middle position like most of setzer's rhythm runs.. you hear the "girthy-ness" of the JJ/s low mids grunt, exchanged for the Ruby's leaner tighter low end and much more silky jangle in the high mids right away and you nod your head and go YEP! thats right... SETzer is a tone god.

Would it matter in another fender amp design that has a mids control, its debatable but
I hear it... In the blonde bassman that has no mids control, I feel like I can INDEED control the sonic shift of the amps mids tone with the preamp tube.. since the normal channel of the bassman is only using one tube for that purpose (V=3) as the preamp tube closest to the power tubes is the Phase inverter(P=1)

so.. again if you are chasing the tone, the details tend to matter to sickos like me. Am I
really off base? IF I am then Rich Modica was an idiot doing what he did to setzer's amps for the dirty boogie album and if I may name drop, Tom Jones of tvjones thinks very highly of what Rich Modica did for Setzer's sound.

tavo your not 'off-base' with your tone - chasing, more 'on the case'.
My problem has been getting hold of the chinese ruby tubes in england. I can find plenty in your country and Australia (cheers knudi and john) but the shipping makes it a bit too costly, anyway Ive found some in Germany and they're reasonably priced and shipping to the uk is reasonable too so any uk 'tone -chasers' who cant find the right valve can check this place:
http://www.banzaimusic.com/Ruby-Tubes-c-570/
btw i was gigging on new years eve and in the first set I noticed I was lacking a bit of bite when I went from the rythmn to the bridge pickup so in the break I tweaked the bridge pickup height and pole-pieces and voila! i could hear an obvious difference - thanks to the nocturne pedal. Prior to getting the pedal, any pickup/polepiece tweaking was far too subtle for my ears.

booty wrote:

tavo your not 'off-base' with your tone - chasing, more 'on the case'.
My problem has been getting hold of the chinese ruby tubes in england. I can find plenty in your country and Australia (cheers knudi and john) but the shipping makes it a bit too costly, anyway Ive found some in Germany and they're reasonably priced and shipping to the uk is reasonable too so any uk 'tone -chasers' who cant find the right valve can check this place:
http://www.banzaimusic.com/Ruby-Tubes-c-570/
btw i was gigging on new years eve and in the first set I noticed I was lacking a bit of bite when I went from the rythmn to the bridge pickup so in the break I tweaked the bridge pickup height and pole-pieces and voila! i could hear an obvious difference - thanks to the nocturne pedal. Prior to getting the pedal, any pickup/polepiece tweaking was far too subtle for my ears.

I know this should be another thread(and beat to death) but.. I have to say that if you own a FMIC gretsch, in particular a Hotrod or sig model, there is no real adjustment avail to your pickups because they've placed WOOD freakin shims under the pickups. Trying to adjust pole pieces is only for string balance AFTER pickup height has properly been employed.

This CANNOT happen unless you lift out the pickups, pop off the stupid wood shims and install neoprene shims(mousepad).
I just recently had an SSLVO in and it sounded like complete shite and no amount of pole adjustment would save it. Once I did the little $2 fix(labor not included,ha) I was able to adjust the pickups to Tvjones.com SPECS..

Gotta remember its a BAR magnet underneath those covers, not anything like a strat or tele. ...so rule of thumb. If you cannot adjust your filtertron covers up to 3/16ths-5/32nds from the bottoms of both low and high E strings, you are NEVER gonna get your gretsch to sound the way its suppose to and all other tone employments are kind of a mute point.

you can search on the forum and there are quite a few intuitive posts about this lovely
dilemma from Gretsch.