Rogue Audio Dark Upgrade.

I’ve been mulling whether to send in my Rogue Stereo 100 for the "dark" upgrade, but seems to really not be worth it. I already have good tubes in the ST100. After many combos having found CBS 7729 (gain) 7730 (driver) to be fantastic. More punch and equal clarity to the long plates Amperex and 7316 I had in there. I’ve also tried Telefunken 12AX7s and multiple other tubes, and to me the CBSs trump them all, once the 7729 broke in (There seemed to be some grain in treble that is gone now). That was a nice tube surprise! Rogue will charge $~1350 for the upgrade sans tubes and $1500 with their choice of Telefunken and the like. On another note, I’ve recently sent in my Rogue RP7 for upgrading to RP9 and am VERY happy about the change.

@samzx12 The CBS 7729 was their low noise 12AX7 for instruments. From Brent Jesse’s page: "New Old Stock in original boxes. Low noise industrial version of the 12AX7, with heavily gold plated pins. These were made by CBS and then screened for precision laboratory or avionics (Raytheon labeled) use and sometimes sold under the Leeds & Northrop label, with their lab grade number on the tube and box. This is a nice, but very scarce, version of the 12AX7 only made by CBS. Perfect for tube microphone preamplifiers, and incredible in any other hi-fi audio application."

I left out the price cause it’s rare, thus expensive. : ) The plate seems to a standard ladder (long plate). I’m not aware of any long plate triple micas TBH, could be wrong. The CBS 7729 is a fine tube. It appears to pare well with its 12AU7 brother, the CBS 7730, but that could be my imagination, as its the driver tube in the Stereo100 that affects the sound the most.