Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I just bought a Peavey MAX bass preamp from Ebay to monkey around with (Im thinking Ricko-sound here), it has a 12AX7 tube in the preamp section. I know alot of people replace tubes with specific brands for whatever reason,, and I would appreciate any info I can get on the subject. Thanks.

EI, and JJ make a good preamp tube.
If you want to cut the gain, you can always swap the 12AX7 for a 12AT7 or 12AU7.

http://www.tubedepot.com/preamptubes.html

NOS RCA sounds better and has a much larger plate area. If you can find them.

If it isn't noisy the tube in it is probably ok.
I like NOS tubes better myself, but it can be a krap shoot sometimes as you don't really know if they are NOS, New Old Stock, which means they are brand new just made 20-30 years or more years ago. American tubes were much better than anything being made today and are correspondingly higher in price but you have to be careful, buy from ham radio operators, we are for the most part an honest lot, look for the license number in their ebay name.
KB1OKL

This is all very interesting to me. You guys are a wealth of knowledge. Thank you very much for your input.