New Preamp Tubes for my Mark V - my story

First of all, let me thank all of you for such great info that this forum provides. It sure did help me a lot with my research on tubes.
I was feeling a little underwhelmed with my Mark V regarding Channel 2 in Crunch Mode and somewhat in Channel 3 in Mark IV mode. I just seemed that it was lacking something, and after watching the Mesa Doug West demo on YouTube, I thought to myself hmmm... my amp does not sound like that. So after many overdrive pedal experiments, I just could not understand why I could not get the sound I wanted.
I used to have a Mesa Studio Preamp and it had all the gain and punch you could imagine, but why didn't my Mark V sound the same or even better!! Anyway long story short, after researching about preamp tubes I purchased and replaced V1, V2, V3 and V7. I now get great crunch and clarity on Channel 2 and liquidy smooth saturation on Channel 3 Mark IV mode. It really did make a world of difference. I had to turn the gain back on both channels and re-tweak my settings. The Treble and Presence Controls now have a much better response than they did prior to the swap. Overall it really brought out everything I was looking for. While this selection may not be for everyone, this is the tube cocktail I used:

V1 = Mesa SPAX7
V2 = JJ Hi Gain
V3 = Ruby Hi Grade
V4 = Stock
V5 = Stock
V6 = Stock
V7 = Sovtek 12AX7LPS

Thanks again for your help and I hope maybe this selection might be the answer to others as well !

Thanks for sharing, it's always cool to hear the experiments from others and how they pan out. It's helpful. Happy to hear you found something that works for you.

glad i clicked on this link too..i just posted my tube swap in the MKV page..
always looking to see what others are using for that awsome tone!!
may give that one a try just need to get the ruby...

My setup is similar and my story is the same. New tubes made my Mark V sound even better than it already did.

Here's what I got from Doug's:

V1 - Tung 12AX7 100/110
V2 - High Gain JJ ECC83 115/115
V3 - Ruby 12AX7AC7 High Grade 110/115
V4 - Penta 12AX7 105/110
V5 - Penta 12AX7 110/105
V6 - Penta 12AX7 110/100
V7 - Sovtek 12AX7 LPS 100/100

Very pleased with it all, to say the least.

I get a lot more gain with more conservative gain/treble/presence settings now. Noise is decreased if anything and even the clean channel benefited. The amp is quite a bit brighter now, but I think that's probably directly related to the gain increase. It's easily tempered by decreasing gain/treble/presence/6600 hz.