Watford valves cryo pre-amp tubes, just fitted

Hi guys I wondered if any of you have fitted a set of cryo pre-amp tubes from Watford valves?

I just replaced my stock mesa tubes with a set of standard gain into my 5:50 and i've experienced a slight improvement in clarity but seem to have lost some volume is this normal?

They're all marked the same on the tube so I guess they could all go in any of the sockets but I'm 99% sure i fitted them all in the right sockets in the right order. I did a take one out replace it approach before moving on to the next.

Help please? I was expecting a greater benefit than is immediately apparent at bedroom levels, not had chance to gig yet.
Thanks
Bubble

Hi, I haven't fitted the valves in question myself, however, I was talking to the guys at Watford valves on Thursday about this very subject.

My 5:25 sounds great on clean, crunch and blues but I have never been happy with the burn mode. Anyway I was told that it is a common complaint among 5:25 owners and that they get a lot of questions regarding this. Now from what I remember, they said that the "cascading gain circuit", I think thats right, is just too much for the amp. This results in a muddy, harsh sound which does the 5:25 no favours at all.
They sell three types of valve kits for this model, low gain, standard and high gain. I believe they said that their standard gain valve kits are in fact slightly lower gain than the valves Mesa fit from the factory. This is to improve the sound and reduce the harshness.

So I would say that your description about increased clarity and reduced volume would be normal.

Have you spoken to them directly? They are very helpfull.

Thanks Fredm that sounds about right from what I'm experiencing, the clarity is much improved on the 5:50 but loss of a little volume admittedly it's not really a loss in volume as I just need to wind the volume round further than I'm used to, even at gig levels master never creeps above 11/12 o'clock.

Many thanks for the input, thought I was going mad! They have made a nice difference to the sound but my old eq settings needed tweaking to achieve the same tones with the new valves. Incidentally I replaced the power tubes to a set recommended by Watford and they were awesome, completely transformed an already great amp.

In my humble opinion the 5:50 is unrivalled as a bang for buck amp...
Regards
Dimitri