12AT7 tubes

Hi everyone,
First , thanks everyone for all inputs,advice and recommendations. I have bought siemens tube,and planned to get amperex one. I would love to get Telefunken ,mullard ,RCA tubes when opportunities come. I would post my impressions from tubes i bought.
To:Zaikesman,
My VTL tp2.5 phono stage uses 1 single 12at7 and 3 12ax7 tubes.I broke 12at1 one when i clamped mapleshade tube anchor with it. Do I need to match my new single 12at7 tube with old 12ax7 ones for the gain? Thanks for your advice.KB

The gain factor is constant for a 12AT7. The age of the tube can be a factor in dissipation but it's only noticible if you have a brand new or near dead tube. Is that what you meant about matching it to the 12AX7s. Go to the Tubestore.com and use their gain factor chart. Or did you mean matching channels in that case both should be very closely matched and the same tubes. I don't get it? You don't need to match the the 12AX7s.

How does the EI fall into this group? They came stock with my stingray. Another member has a set of teles Im interesting in.

Thanks

EIs are not bad sounding tubes. No-one seems to have mentioned the Electro Harmonix tube either, although if pcied for low microphonics, is a very nice sounding tube, even if it is a newly manufactered tube.

Often the Chinese 12AT7 gets denigrated in discussions like this, but I thought it important to point some things out about them: They are very quiet- the most consistant that we have tested. In a phono section this can be a big deal. If also hand-picked for low microphonics, they can rival the sonics of NOS tubes quite easily. One time Albert shipped us his amplifiers, which had Telefunken 12AT7s in it, and we replaced them with the Chinese tube. To our surprise, the Chinese sounded a lot better! We then tested the Telefunken tubes and found that they were testing in the '?' range of the tube tester. Since then we have seen quite a few good-testing Mullards, Siemans and Amperex that got dusted by the lowly Chinese tube...

One thing is for sure- its to your best interest to make sure you are installing a good tube! Make sure that whatever you get can be returned if you are not satisfied!

Mullards are the best I have heard... Can change systems from nice to incredible.. Most of the time the gear is beyond the quality of the tube used in it and you would never need a 15 k piece of gear, just some real good and silent musical tubes out of the norm.