Replasment for Mullard Long Plates?

I'm boycotting and protesting the AA Tube Asylum for archaic formatting! Also, I prefer this brain trust anyway.

I had a conversation about 12ax7s with a dude at "thetubestore" and he thinks the Lions are a nice but more classic sounding tube (i.e. "mellower"), and the "preferred" 7025s they sell (they sell both so there's no incentive to sell me cheaper tubes) are cleaner. I am not in the market for old tubes at the moment since it seems that there are some great new tubes that unlike the "vintage tube" market, haven't been passed around by collectors, or tested on sketchy machines by sketchy testors after being yanked out of some hapless dusty old radio to be sold for big bucks with no warranty with bent rusty pins and smeared printing. I just read a review of the new ARC Reference 150 using KT120s and I have yet to hear anybody dislike that tube in any meaningful way, and it's about as new as it gets. Also, the ARC Ref is about 9 times the cost of my Jolida so I feel thrifty.

Wolf,
Don't worry about archaic formatting at AudioAsylum, there are people there that have vast knowledge of tubes, new and old. You mat be right about some vintage tubes being tested on sketchy tube testers, but i can assure you my tubes are tested on a calibrated B@K 700 from an Electrical Engineer friend who rebuilds tube amps and amplifiers.In fact he will be doing some work on my VTL ST85 tube amp later this summer. Just to replace some power supply caps.

Wolf,
We all have our own take on risk-aversion, but from my perspective you're overestimating the risk of vintage tubes. I've used tons of tubes from many different sources (including ebay) and most of the vintage tubes (advertised with good test readings) work & sound great, and will last for a LONG time...even many of the gnarly-looking equipment pulls. Sure, I've had a few vintage tubes die on me (the minority, by far). However, the ONLY catastrophic failure I've experienced was with a fully tested new-production EH KT90.

Don't want to risk spending a mint for a bad vintage tube? Then don't pay a mint for vintage tubes ;) There's still some excellent performers out there for reasonable prices. The diversity of sonic attributes available in the pool of vintage tubes is amazing; don't sell yourself short by limiting to ONLY new production -- some of which are admittedly quite good. While the great vintage power tubes are getting ridiculously expensive (and the good-quality new production is certainly appreciated), the vintage small signal tubes are still available. I've certainly heard some nice warmth from certain new production tubes (e.g. SED EL34, e.g. Russian KT120), but it's still not the same kind of magical warmth as that from a great Mullard or RCA -- those are...truly special.

If you still want to be cautious, the most careful tube seller I've ever encountered is Andy at V.T.S. If you *ever* get a mediocre tube from him, I'd be shocked.

Mulveling...you make a compelling case, and maybe I will get some Great Mullards just so I can say to strangers, "I now have Great Mullards"...totally worth it if only for that, although I assume most people would think I'm talking about a dog breed. I've had some old tubes around...usually stuck in a guitar amp and yeah, they do work a long time....really long...my 61 Fender Deluxe (got it in 1970) had original tubes for 50 years. I'll keep gathering opinions like the one I'm currently fishing around for about the 7025s the TubeStore dude was talking about, although they may have limited magical warmth (really...he described them sort of like that).

Cool, Wolf. :)
If/when you go for those "Great Mullards", try to hold out for some nice long-plates at a reasonable price...though the short plates & box plate CV4004 still yield gobs of warmth with at least a touch of the "magic". I also like the RCA long black plates quite a bit...just depends on your system. For me, it's difficult (but possible) to overdose on warmth.

I actually don't have any 7025s in my slightly substantial collection....perhaps someday...

Mike