Sorry for the delay but the tubes sat at Canadian customs for far too long. Grrr.
Anyway I did a total tube swap and what a major difference. Even if tubes test well it doesn't mean jack in terms of overall performance. I have a tester and all my old tubes tested great but were noisy and one for sure was microphonic (picked up everything in the room including voices).
I went for nos Mullard cv4003 and nos Russian 6h23p eb tubes. All are dead quiet by comparison. No microphony, lower noise floor. You just can't trust test results.
I also tetubes my zesto phono stage stage with new gold lion 12ax7's. Very nice. Had sovtek lps tubes which I like but just couldn't a get super quiet quad.
Anyway I did a total tube swap and what a major difference. Even if tubes test well it doesn't mean jack in terms of overall performance. I have a tester and all my old tubes tested great but were noisy and one for sure was microphonic (picked up everything in the room including voices).
I went for nos Mullard cv4003 and nos Russian 6h23p eb tubes. All are dead quiet by comparison. No microphony, lower noise floor. You just can't trust test results.
I also tetubes my zesto phono stage stage with new gold lion 12ax7's. Very nice. Had sovtek lps tubes which I like but just couldn't a get super quiet quad.