Tube options for Jolida


Currently using a Jolida Glass FX DAC III, An am very pleased with it's performance. But would like to 
change the stock tubes (12AX7's). Looking to take a little brightness out of the sound. Any opinions?
Also, going to purchase Jolida's JDII phono pre. It has the exact 12AX7 tubes and wonder if what works
with the above DAC will be recommended for the JDII?

Thanks in advance
markeetaux

Hi, markeetaux, I swapped out the stock Electro-Harmonix tubes from my JD9 with some Mullard style tubes from Groove Tubes. They're the GT-12AX7-M tubes. I noticed that the price has gone up quite a bit from when I bought them. They made a big improvement in the sound I got from the JD9 with both MM and LOMC cartridges. I tried some Chinese style Groove Tubes (GT-12AX7-C) and they were better but I prefer the GT12AX7-M tubes. The C style had great mid-range but I like the overall tonal balance and bass definition of the M style.

If you do a search for JD9 and Mullard style tubes you should find quite a few discussions about their sound compared to other tubes.


Regards,

Tom

The 5751 Blackplates are excellent premium tubes, very dynamic.
For a more relaxed, classic sound from the same family of tubes is the RCA 12AX7 Blackplate.
The Blackplates have a very open sound.

I would also recommend Mullard Longplates, but tube rolling with Mullards can get very expensive.
After trying various NOS Philips-Psvane-Tung Sol-"preferred" etc. 12AX7s in my Jolida power amp (factory modded 502P), I finally bought a matched and balanced pair of Russian (as opposed to the "licensed" Chinese version) Gold Lions from thetubestore.com. GREAT sounding tubes in every way…every…except with Mumblecore…all other styles of music work fine (Late early music, early later music, neo classical, un-classical, bebop, crappy demo CDs of people who should not be playing music, random sound effects, specific sound effects, 45 rpm 12 inch vinyl that requires you to turn the thing over every 8.5 minutes, heavy metal and lighter alloy metal like Titanium, Richard Burton reading Dylan Thomas, Le Show, BBC3 crowd feet shuffling sounds…).