Best 12ax7 for stock PAS-3?

Time for new tubes for my trusty preamp . . . Looking at current production, I see that people running various equipment like various brands: Sovtek, JJ, Golden Lion, Electro Harmonix and many others. Have you found that one brand is best matched to the PAS-3?

John R.

My PAS is feeding two Dyna mk3 amps running in triode mode, if that matters.

John R.

it's been sitting for a while. When I fired it back up recently, the sound on both channels was heavily distorted. Could be several things, but AFAIK (I bought it used) the tubes may be original.

It's highly unlikely that any of the tubes have gone bad just because they were out of service for a while. I suspect there are caps going bad or there are dirty connections, possibly at the tube pins, switches and RCA connections. Small signal tubes have a very long life and don't require frequent replacement.

Very helpful replies -- thank you!

jrethorst wrote:Time for new tubes for my trusty preamp . . . Looking at current production, I see that people running various equipment like various brands: Sovtek, JJ, Golden Lion, Electro Harmonix and many others. Have you found that one brand is best matched to the PAS-3?

John R.

For many years I have worked on a lot of old tube equipment and most of the time it's the capacitors that will go bad while the amplifier is in storage or not in use.

The tubes on the other hand very rarely go bad if they have been sitting in a closet or in storage. Most of the It's the amount of used physical time that determines how long they will last.

Like the other comments above.... I would do a little checking around and see if you have a few bad capacitor and if you do have access to a tube tester then I would check the tubes to make sure that they are good.