I remeber a little while back a discussion about 'Tribes and the stock tubes being crap, so I had a dig around and found that some of the best are made by a Sovtek - I think E.Harmonix tubes are made by them too. Try the 12ax7's by electroharmonix though many also say they like the JJ tubes:

Eurotubes

These tubes (either) will actually give you warmth rather than the hiss and distortion the standard ones offer.

Most of the people who use the most tubes (guitarists) prefer groove tubes over sovtek to my knowledge But the sovteks are probably OK too.

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Groove tubes are just rebranded chinese tubes in most cases, although it really depends which tube you get from them. They're overpriced and overrated. There is _alot_ of misinformation going around about GT, and some of their claims are potentially very misleading.

We just replaced the stock groove tubes in a fender hotrod deluxe, with Svetlana 6L6's (the real "winged-c" svets, not the newer "svetlanas" that are being produced since the manufacturing split and legal branding dispute between SED and Svetlana), which was a nice upgrade. much cleaner, warmer tone. We replaced the preamps (12AX7s) with Sovteks, which also worked out nicely.

Some of the more popular 12AX7s:

http://www.thetubestore.com/sovtek12ax7lps.html
http://www.thetubestore.com/tesla12ax7.html
http://www.thetubestore.com/tungsol12ax7.html
http://www.thetubestore.com/sylvania5751.html

12AX7s are cheap, easy to swap... it's not so much about which one is "best" but which has the sound you are looking for. They all will sound a little different depending on the internal design, which changes the response pattern. Play around a bit and see which is best for you

Oh OK then, I stand corrected. I don't use valves personally, so my knowledge is a little slender (for a guitarist). I do remember hearing someone saying that sovteks were a bit dodgy, but maybe thats the newer ones due to the branding/legal issues you referred to.

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Nah man, you were right on.. most guitarists DO prefer groove tubes. they buy into the marketing hype and like that they can find them (for inflated prices) at the local guitar center outlet, where the sales pawns are trained to push them hard.

Then there's the fact that Fender includes them stock in their mexi-built amps, so they MUST be the bomb

guitarists are an amusing bunch, but I still dig y'all

All tubes are dodgy... Hence why it pays to buy them from someone who's run them through a burnin and checkout on a proper test bench before sale. The better vendors and shops do this for ya. That's actually the majority of GT's business; QA'ing the stuff they rebrand...

Just the same as most things in guitar land, if its got a rhyming name and its endorsed by fender then it must be great

I know that a large part of QAing tubes is to do with getting matching sets, so I guess thats not such a drama with the electribes, since they only have one, probably means you can grab something even cheaper

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It's all about what sound you're looking for. I haven't tried Groove Tubes but Sovteks (12AX7) have too blurry and dark sound for my taste. I would recommend the "winged" Svetlana 12AX7's. They sound very clear and have a nice character when overdriven.

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