VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

D Voice · Been Here Awhile Joined: 26 Jun 2010 Posts: 232

any of these particularly better (or less) suited to voiceovers?

[not talking about brand of manufacturer, but rather specific designs of tubes]

As far as i understand, they are interchangeable as war as placing in hardware (such as some tube misc or a Tube Pre) when replacing or modding.

But, for example i read that the 12AT7 has less gain, but more headroom(?) than the 12AX7.

Mike Sommer · Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:29 am Post subject:

There is no such thing as a tube that is better for Voice over, there are better tubes for a particular circuit than another. It also depends on the tubes usage, and they are not all interchangeable - some may require circuit modification - do to filament voltage requirements etc...

Don't confuse the High Gain less headroom - low gain more headroom information out there as a direct output/performer changer. You can get better performance from lets say a preamp that uses a 12ax7 by simply changing to a higher quality version of the same tube.

So the question would be, what tube are you wanting to change, and in what device? and what are you expecting?

Tell us the full story.
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Monk · Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2011 1:23 pm Post subject:

and take pictures. Wink

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D Voice · Been Here Awhile Joined: 26 Jun 2010 Posts: 232

Bish · Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2011 4:07 am Post subject:

The v69 was getting some love from a few people over the weekend... I'm the one that replaced the stock with the Mullard. While I think the Mullard was an improvement on the MXL, (and also if you have something made of glass in your critical path, you'd better have a replacement handy), it was one of the lower-priced replacement tubes... an experimental foray into the world of tube replacement... I see more tubes on my horizon...

I used the ebay seller bnb_tubes to get a NOS Mullard and was happy... they may be no better or worse than any of the others, but they were fine for me.

Cheers
Peter
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todd ellis · Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2011 5:52 am Post subject:

x2 on the mxl v69 + NOS mullard ... super (and economical) combo in my book.
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Mike Sommer · Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2011 1:27 pm Post subject:

Be sure it's NOS there is a company that is making Mullards with the original equipment. But it's not the equipment that makes the sound of the tube, it's the material in them.

We've kicked this ball around before:
http://www.vo-bb.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12482&sid=43ffba202ba9456d5c1a3549edafa191
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The Blog:
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Acoustics are counter-intuitive. If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong.

Steve Knight · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2011 12:11 pm Post subject:

I've heard many say that stock tubes are sub-standard, and should be replaced...I'm not sure how true that is, but I CAN say that on my UA-710 there seems to be no audible difference between the tube being off, and cranked all the way..

Mike Sommer · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2011 3:07 pm Post subject:

Hey Steve,

"Stock tubes" are not of the same "quality" as let's say a vintage NOS tube does. It has to do with the materials used to make the tubes.

The new tubes work as intended, they just seem to lack that extra something on many levels.

There are some Russian tubes that are very nice, but this can be hit and miss too.

As for your Cranking of the 710, there should be some difference warmth and tone.
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Acoustics are counter-intuitive. If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong.

Lance Blair · M&M Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 2281 Location: Atlanta

I don't use tube gear any more, but I liked the new Russian Tung-Sols gold pin 12ax7s a lot for VO in terms of presence and air, and the low end was tight too...and I found this to be the case with three different orders I made for them.
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Dayo · Cinquecento Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 544 Location: UK

Lance Blair · M&M Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 2281 Location: Atlanta

I've never owned a really nice tube preamp (say Avalon or Manley, etc.) and the sub $1000 ones just don't do it for me, and I've never been thrilled the UA 610 or Summit sound either (just a personal thing) though they're good. I finally realized that my voice does better with cleaner gear, and if I ever need to give it some flavor (I mean, 99% of my work is delivering unprocessed files) then there's plenty of compression flavors you can get with plugins. If the engineers want it tubey, they can make it tubey in post. There's a Jack Daniels campaign out this year that is tube driven as heck to sound folksy and retro and I'm not a fan of that aspect of it.

I do want a Manley Ref mic and a Manley mono tube pre, though (test drove one a while back and loved it). So, I'm not against tubes! Wink

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Mike Sommer · Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 10:02 am Post subject:

I love the crap out of tube gear-- BUT it's more of a romantic notion. Yeah, tube gear sounds great. If I'm trying to capture a vintage sound, I'll reach for a tube pre or put a tube pice of gear in the audio chain to get that color, but moistly I can get much of that same tone from a good class-A solid state preamp.

Even Tube mics can be a bother, and a lot of engineers that get that kind of audio don't know what they've got or how to take advantage of it. They stomp all over it, and turn it into something completely different.

Lance mentioned the M5 damn good pre, but it's a clean preamp, the TLM103 needs some good vintage color to balance it out.
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The Blog:
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Acoustics are counter-intuitive. If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong.

kgenus · Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:54 pm Post subject:

Interestingly enough, the Requisite Audio pres' circuitry is entirely point-to-point soldering, with the exception of the lights and VU meters (which also have their own, separate power supply). Stock, they arrive with the competitively priced Electro-Harmonix tubes, which "ain't NoS Mullards." The EH tubes sound amazing in the RA gear, it's like a totally different tube. Recordings are clean with tons of depth and if you're really after the low end distortion, simply dial in the amount with the mic/di feedback circuit. Of course, point-to-point is a bit costly so it's you're in the Manley VoxBox range price wise.
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Dayo · Cinquecento Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 544 Location: UK