Tung-Sol 12AX7/ECC83

These tubes replaced V1, V2 of an Epiphone Blues Custom 30

The stock Tubes where old so the improvement of tone was audible. Stock Electro Harmonix gave me less output and more fizz.Tung Sols where loud round and clean. It is difficult to understand the sound when you read words like "more open", "3-D sounding", "Bright but Thick" but really there are not other words to describe. It has great clarity, it is bright but full. Blues Custom is a VERY bright amp but these tubes dont overflow it. It cuts through the mix well.

IN COMPARISSON WITH JJ ECC83.
Honestly the differences are there but are minimal. If you want to change the sound of your amp, different tubes aint gonna give you dramatic differences but slight different character. JJs seem a bit darker. JJ has the same amount of Treble but more low Mids that give the impression of darker sound. The Bass is also looser with JJ but Tung Sol thickens it nicely.

The comparisson test was in an Epiphone Blues Custom (where they stayed) and in a Marshall DSL20. Recorded with an SM57. When playing clean the difference is minimal and you have to pay attention to hear a difference if any. Playing with an OCD in Epiphone and with the gain Channel turned up in the Marshall the differences where more pronounced and are as described above.

I have Tung Sols in the Epiphone for about 2 weeks so I will edit my review in the future to comment on reliability.

It is also important to mention that Thomann delivered them to me securely, carefully packaged and they traveled a bit, so dont be afraid the transportation if you want to buy your tubes online

I own a Peavy Classic 50 212 amp (prior 2000 model) and after 19 years of use, I had to replace all tubes, since the reverb became unusable (too noisy) and the sound had become muddy, with constant "ups and downs". After searching in various sites, blogs and forums, I ended up to buy the Tung-Sol for position V1 (clean).
The overall response of my amp has returned to its prior condition with an improvement in the bass (feels tighter and I can crank it up to near 11), smoother highs (treble) in general and you get way far improved sound than before when you use the presence control (the sound is sweeter).
Combined with the other two 12AX7 (TAD, Sovtek), my amp has transformed back to the rocking blues machine it meant to be (and no bias moderation needed). I definitely recommend it!