>>14843621Chinese tubes nowhere NEAR as shit as they used to be. Not saying they are good, but some of them are as Sovtek.
JJ is still around though, and if there is any evidence that communism>capitalism, it's the fact that Tesla tubes became objectively worse after they became a free market.
Regardless, old tubes are still better than new tubes. I mostly use RCA 12AX7A's and Tung-Sol EL34's, and they are FAR better than modern tubes. I have tons of old tubes though, and some sound better on certain circuit. The quality of the tube sound can also be explicitly divided into 'saturated' and 'overdriven'. Telefunken have the best 'saturated' sound, amazing clean, but if the breakup isn't as pleasing. The Japanese TEN tubes are criminally underrated and are straight up the best tubes for cranking, and if using a 12AX7 for as a gain tube, should be the only tube ever used for that application.
Oh, and though I actually like SS power sections (unless I really want some tube compression), SS preamps SUCK for guitar amps. For power tubes, EL84's suck unless you just want a wall of distortion, but EL34's are probably best for amps that don't drive them hard (at least the compress before going to outright distortion like EL84's).
That said, Russia also happens to make my favorite affordable microphones. Shame they are going to dry up soon.
