Studio Preamp Tubes (Older are better?)

Hi there,

I just replaced the old tubes in my studio preamp with new jj tubes. The old set were old sovtek tubes. I compared the before and after and must say it was obvious the sovteks sounded better. Less noise, no bloated low end and no harshness, all of which the JJs had. I was wondering if I missed something here because I would think that new jjs would sound better than very old sovteks. I think maybe I need to do a bias and break in the tubes, what do you all think? Let me know please, thanks!

I did the same thing. I want more, more of everything. I tried many preamp tubes because it is so easy to change them in the SP. Those Sovtek's were by far the best. I think they were the 12ax7LPS if I remember correctly. I remember they had 3 letters after the 7.

So I did some digging and it looks like preamp tubes don’t need to be biased....newbie here my bad. So if the tubes don’t need to be broken in why don’t they sound anywhere as good? I know tubes sound different, but it’s like night and day.

Different amps/preamps like different tubes. I do the same thing when I buy a different amp and sometimes what was in there is better than what I have and I have a tube checker to see how good the tube is before I change it.

Just use your ears is all.

Hello.
Drop your best- oldest - most expensive 12AX7 pre tube into position V 1, and listen for the tone.
Cheers.

I'm not sure I buy any of the snake oil around old tubes.

Put a Tung Sol 12AX7 in V1 and call it a day. They're $15-$25 depending on where you buy them online.