6SN7 Tung Sol Reissue Mullard 12AX7 any comments?

I've been considering trying the reissue 6sn7s, but looking at the pictures, they look just like the regular Electro Harmonix tubes. They do not look like the round plate tubes. I can't tell if there is any difference internally. New Sensor doesn't say a whole lot about its tubes. I do remember a quote from the American owner saying the release of these tubes was delayed over a year because they wnated to get them just right. I have searched for posts on AA, and there are a lot of people saying they are not really copies of Tung-Sols, just relabelled EHs but if you read closely, these people have not generally tried the tubes out. I think there was one person who said he had tried them out, and heard little difference between them and the regular EH tubes. On the other hand, there were a number of posts saying the 12ax7 reissues were the best new production 12ax7s available.

All right, I couldn't stand waiting for someone else, so I just ordered a half dozen to try in my Atmasphere MA1s. When I come to any conclusions, I'll post back here - probably not until after the new year, though. I wioll be comparing to regular Electro Harmonix, not NOS anything.
Another thing I wonder about is if by the time you get around to trying a new tube type, if the old tubes are so worn out that anything new would sound good, but if you had different tubes all new, then did a shoot-out, you might think differently.

OK, I got my TungSol RI 6SN7s. Visually, there was little difference. Eveything you can see looks identical except for the color of the plates. The EH have gray plates, the TS have black. I put 5 in one AtmaSphere MA1, and left the Electro Harmonix tubes in the other (I actually took them out and put them back in, in case that would make a difference, maybe by cleaning corosion off the contacts). I let the TSs bun in fo about 25 hours. I ran the outputs of my Wadia GNSC 850 to a Pass X1 preamp, which I set to mono. I then disconnected both speaker wires, and pulled them to one side so they were coming from the same spot, and I could not tell which was which. I labelled one A and the other B. I put one Talon Hawk with stand in the middle of the living room and did a blind test of the amplifiers with different tubes. I concluded the one with the Tung Sols sounded noticably better than the one with the EH tubes. The TSs sounded richer in the lows, more 3 dimensional, and more liquid. By comparison, the EHs sounded a bit metallic and flat. The difference was not huge; it was not like the change you get from changing a major component like an amplifier or CD player. The basic characte of the amplifers was the same, but one was a better version than the other. Unlike many comnponent changes, there seemed to be no tradeoff; I didnt' hear anything get worse going from the EH to the TS. The only question in my mind still is whether the difference was due to the design of the tube themselves, orr the aging of the EH tubes. The EH are about 1.5 years old, and have about 1200 hours on them (I estimate). I suppose I should buy a set of new EH to come to some real conclusions. I'll think about it.

I got them from TubeStore.com. TubeDepot has them also; both sell them for $15.00 each. How often do you typically replace tubes? I'm really wondering how much of what I heard was due to the age of the ElectroHarmonix tubes. If you try them out, let us know how they compare to your vintage tubes.

Interesting post, Gonzalo. I agree that I prefer old tubes to the new EH/TSRI, alhtough I would rank them in different order than you have them. In reality, though, I have found a mix of types sounds best. One other to try is the Shuguang Treasure tubes. They are as good as any old tube I have used. That's not to say they will sound best in any application, but they are certainly competitive, performance-wise. I am using early blue-glass tubes, not the final black-glass types. Supposedly the black coated glass are better. I suppose I'll hve to try them at some point, but they are very expensive.