I suppose what I should have done in the first place is to call Cary and see what they had to say about it, so I did. Marc, their V12 guru, says that the 12bz7 and 12ax7 both have a mu of about 100 and so would have similar gain characteristics. To reduce the gain he suggests a 5751 with a mu of 70, or a 6027A (12ay7) with a mu of 40, and he went on to suggest that he really liked the sound qualities of the latter. He also tells me that the power supply upgrades that he installed in my amp this morning sound great and it's putting out a solid 120 watts in UL, so I'm looking forward to getting it back sometime next week. Will experiment and update.
Swap out 12bz7 in favor of 12ax7?
I've asked this question before, but maybe wasn't specific enough so I thought I'd try again. I have a Cary V12r amp which has two 12bz7 tubes in the signal path. I understand that the 12bz7's are a high-gain alternate to the 12ax7. The question is, in this amplifier, could I take out the 12bz7 tubes and replace them with the lower gain 12ax7 tubes? I know a fair number of A-Goners have switched from the 12ax7 to the 12BZ7 for the added gain but I'm looking for the the opposite. Any thoughts?
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- 8 posts total
- 8 posts total