low noise 12AX7's

[Pete24v]

not sure on that one, the Fender amps come with Groove Tubes and the rubber dampener from stock

[jpfamps]

The Fender Blues Deluxe and Deville are notoriously bad for microphonics as the valves are very close to the speakers.

All valves are microphonic, although some are obviously more microphonic than others.

The damping rings are a sensible solution.

[hunter]

I think we may wanna forget about the Blackburn guys, here a quote from Rig Talk's Baron55:

"Too late guys, the company went bankrupt. Tech Tube was a small division that was part of the large CRT manufacturing plant in Blackburn. They lost a big CRT contract with several companies (LCD taking over) and basically had no more business left to do. The tech tube division was a casualty.


Here is the "old" News


http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/blackburn/4642860.Historic_Blackburn_firm_in_administration/

There is tons of threads about all of this on the Gear Page.


The Tube was supposed to be released last October, but there was microphonic issues with the tube. The tube was delayed until March-April of this year, still with all the microphonics issues.

 Their site is still up But they are no more.. I bought a couple of these tubes back at the beginning of the year.

The tubes sound very good, tons of clarity gain and articulation. Actually better than many NOS, yes this is true. very sweet sounding. They only had one problem which was the deal breaker for me. They squealed like a piggy! Yep extremely microphonic in higher gain amps. They had very little internal support for the plates which led to extreme microphinics. They were so bad, that you could hear the mechanical noise of turning knobs and switches. They sent out silicone dampners to try to alleviate the issues. In cleaner low gain amps they were fine. But totally unusable in high gain amps.

What is funny for a while they had statements on their website that the "slight" microphonics led to the "character" and tone of the tube. And that the tube may not be suitable for the V1 position. :scared:

About a month before they closed their doors. They were frantically trying to re-design the tube with the help of several guys in the US. I was on the list of Beta testers for them. But they folded before that became a reality.

I will give them credit, they had excellent customer service, and were trying to come out with a totally new design.

I left a not so good review about the microphonics on The Gear page and other sites. And the next thing I new, 2 tubes showed up in the mail next day air from England, for me to try. They were much better, but still were too microphonic for high gain amps. So they were really trying to come up with something great. But the partent company ran out of money.
 Their tube was not a 12AX7 per say, but a totally new redesign."

[HTH AMPS]

I heard the same thing as Hunter posted - very bad microphonics with those Techtube valves.