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Any love for the Gentalex Gold Lion 12ax7 gold pin?

I am not a fan of new production tubes but have to say I really like this tube better than my Telefunkens. The Telefunkens sound bright and not as musical.I also have some black plate RCA’s and early 60’s Mullards and others. I’m really enjoying these gold pin GL’s. Are they better than the RCA and Mullard not sure. But if you ask me today I say yes.

 

i emailed Audio Hungary a while back and asked what tube they voiced or preferred in the A50i and he said the Gold Lion gold pin with out a doubt are the best in this amp vs vintage tubes. I thought for sure he was wrong but he built the amp he must know something. Better than vintage he’s got to be wrong. What the hell I bought some, not cheap either. So I just received them and stuck them in and I’m very impressed. 
 

The amp also takes 4 6922’s and the amp came stock with Gold Lion gold pin but not a fan of those. I much more prefer my Amprex SQ, PQ’s, Valvo’s,and others. The Gold Lion gold pin 6922’ s sound sterile and lifeless compare to my vintage 6922 tube’s.
 

Anyone experience this with this tube or any other current production signal tube? I find it balanced all the way through. Little caught off guard with this one.

paulcreed
tksteingraber's avatar
tksteingraber
538 posts
 

I only buy old stock now.  Tried GL’s and Tung Sol’s but just didn’t sound nearly as good in my amps.  I prefer a fuller warmer sound so I prefer RCA blackplates, Mullard long plates, Sylvania blackplates and Amperex. They provide warmth and detail without being bright.  Not a Tele fan but they sound great in my phono preamp.  Synergy match is at play here.  Good luck with it all. 

mulveling's avatar
mulveling
1,774 posts
 

After spending a couple days with the Gold Lion started noticing soundstage was more focused in the center. Put RCA’s in and soundstage went beyond speaker boundaries and that’s no warm up, maybe I posted to soon. I still like them but better than RCA’s maybe not. Will compare to other tubes. I might have been wrong on this one.

Welcome to the most consistent quality of tubes: the here today, gone tomorrow sense of bliss (or merely contentment). 

There's definitely a durable difference in sound quality between vintages & makes, but it will at times seem exaggerated (often on first listen to a new make), and at other times subdued. 

Good vintage tubes are consistently better at rendering spatial information than new stock. But new has its advantages - they offer a good palette of tonal balances to choose from, and (crucially) it's easy to select for low noise at reasonable prices. Some of the new small tubes (12AX7, 12AU7, 6SN7) measure extremely strong for transconductance, more than any vintage tubes you'll find. This can be an advantage in certain slots. Russian Tung-Sol 6SN7GTB sound a lot more dynamic than any vintage 6SN7 in the V2 (driver) slots of my VAC KT88 amps. In V1, old 6SN7 rube, but in V2 the new ones can't be beat. 

paulcreed OP
537 posts
 

I’ve spent some time with the GL gold pins now. Why when something is new it is exciting to listen to only to discover with time and comparing back to back to well regarded vintage tubes it is lacking. The GL is not a bad tube but compared to Tele, RCA, Mullard, Mazda, Tungsgram instruments just doesn’t have the natural tone or soundstage of vintage tubes. Fooled me.

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