Mark V Tube Rolling Experiences

Hello all,

About a month ago, I decided it was time to retube my Mark V head. I had bought it used after all and a couple of tubes were hissing at higher gain settings.
I went to a local store and got an assortment of current production Tung Sol 12AX7's with slightly different gain ratings. The existing Mesa SRT-440 6L6GC's remained in place.
I found out that while more articulate, the amp now seemed way too bright, thin, and harsh so I decided to dig into my used tube (mostly new) box.
The box had some EH's, Sovteks, Rubys, Mesa Russian-2's, Mesa SRT 12AX7's, a JJ ECC83S, and other rebranded GT's.
After weeks and weeks of tube rolling and not finding the tone in my head, I decided to get a whole complement of JJ's (and one Sovtek LPS)from the The Tube Store--excellent service and prices BTW.
The new JJ ECC83S's, which I think is what Mesa 12AX7's are currently, sounded very good. They were very smooth and compressed just like I like my tone to be.
However, the JJ 6L6GC's sounded very muffled.
I took the JJ 6's out and put Mesa SRT-440's. The amp opened up!
I pretty much ended with a rather stock complement of tubes (with the exception of the LPS), but could not be happier!

Thanks for reading!

I have taken a count of my box of preamp tubes of various brands and such. I have 160 preamp tube to roll through. I actually became fond of the Mullard reissue in V1, V3, V4, V5, V6. Sovtek LPS in V7 seems great, have tried others but seem to keep the LPS in V7.

V2, I like the vintage Mesa 12AX7a (shuguang with square getter) or the Mullard CV4004. Hard to decide. I am also running SED =C= 6L6GC. I did not have much luck with the Mesa STR440. The STR420 were spectacular but cannot get much out of used up 14 years old tubes borrowed from my Mark IV. Mesa (EH) EL34 sounded good too.

Amp is still bright but not as bright as it was with Mesa (JJ tubes). I love how this amp responds to different preamp tubes. I have even tried a full complement of 12AT7 (except for V7 and V1) and was amazed how well it sounded. I used a military grade 5751 in V1 for that experiment. I would rather keep the amp in spec and stay with the 12AX7 tube. It all becomes subjective just like choosing a tone wood for a guitar and what pickups and strings are used.