Genalex Gold Lion 12AX7/ECC83/B759 impressions

ruffian

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I have about 25 hours on a pair of the new Genalex Gold Lion ECC83s. They have excellent stage and dimensionality. They bring depth, breath and width to the music, especially with the mid range. The lows started out slow and bloated or shall I say 'tubey', but they seem to have firmed up a bit now. They still has some mass there though, i'm hoping they get a little bit tighter. I'd prefer it to seem like a solid bass shockwave hitting instead of a jellified mass being dropped on me. Hopefully the low end bloom is past tense. At any rate I had a pair of used Mullard 10M in prior and these are a dramatic improvement, bass bloat or not, these have a depth that the Mullards don't (or no longer) have. I'm looking forward to seeing how they shape up over the next few weeks.

Test piece is a Marantz 7 with the tubes in positions 4+5. I have had a Sovtek LP and a Tele in the 6th position which can also help to control the sound. I can also put these in the phono section of the Marantz or into a separate phono section and as drivers on my power amps, so I do have a lot of other places to try these guys.


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Interesting. Hope you'll post a follow up around 50+ hours. Always wondered but never tried them.
 
Hey Ruffian

I'm running the Gold Lion re-issued KT77's in my amp's finals and I've been curious about these ECC83s...let me know what the verdict is after some more time w/ 'em....bet it will be positive... right now I'm using Sovtek 12AX7LPS in the first stage,, EH 12AU7's in the phase splitter, and a NOS sylvania 12AU7 for the preamp. sometime in the next few months i'll probably dump the Sovtek and EH's for something a bit better.
 
I am running the GL 84's in my Leak now. Sound great but are fragile tubes. I burned one up already, but think it was my fault. Too many in/outs/wiggling etc...
The tone is very very good though.
So naturally I am interested in the ax7's
I am really likeing an EI teleclone in the input. It is a hot/bright tube. Then to Mullard ax7's in the splitters. They are more sedate, but the combo of the 2 tubes really shines. Huge stage, depth, height etc...
So the reviews of this GL tube are important to me, in case I can do better?
 
It has been over a month now so I am looking at 100 hours+ on these tubes. I'm still enjoying them. They seemed to stabilize quite nicely at about the time of my first post. The low-end mud certainly is no more.

Guess my next step is to put the Mullards back in and compare again. But I have no incentive to mix things up as I like what I am hearing now.
 
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