MartyStrat54

I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon testing and recording tube ratings. I was surpised to find out that I had many AX7's in the "above average" ratings and I even had some that were up there with the ICBM. I have six, super strong Raytheon BP's coming in and I will need to test these tubes as well. I bought two lots of new tube boxes. I got tired of having all of these unprotected, loose tube lying around. I should have them in by the time I start shipping everyone's tubes out. Kevin is going the full Monte and getting four tubes.

Joe, I wonder if your 5751 is good? I'm sure you will agree with me that it isn't normal for the AT7 to outperform the 5751 in the gain category. Something is amiss. The tube may be weak for a variety of reasons. I have two 1958 Tung-Sol 5751's and they will outperform and of the AT7's that I have and I have some really hot ones such as JAN (Joint Army/Navy) 12AT7's that are some of the best I ever have had. I bought a box of five and I'm using one as the PI in my old Randall hybrid amp with the 8417 power tubes. It works great in there.

The way I see it, having an AT7 in V1 will work as long as you don't (as you say) crank the gain more than twelve o'clock. In this situation V2 will have enough gain reserve to compensate for the lower gain of the AT7. The result is a completely different sound. On the other side of the fence is putting two super gain 12AX7's in V1 and V2. This is a raging animal that is waiting for a hard power chord followed up by some feverish licks. The tube harmonics I got with two hot tubes was incredible. It made my power tubes sound better as well.

To each his own. I know I'm getting old and I don't play as good as I used to, but I still like the high gain sound. I learned on another thread that the choke mod works better with 100 watt heads than say a 40-60 watt head.
One thing about tube mods, they work well on any size amp.

Marty