6922 tube selection


Time to retube the C-J pre amp and amp. Looking at Genalex Gold Lion tubes at $46.00 each vs Electro Harmonix at $26.00 each. Need a total of 7 tubes. (4 for pre amp and 3 for amp). Any reason to spend the extra money on the Gold Lions? And, any need to spend the extra $5.00 per tube for matching? Thanks for the feedback!
quincy
I'd take it another notch up to the Telefunken 7jd8, at least in your preamp. They're still available from Upscale the last I looked. I use them in my Premier 16 and they are a significant improvement over the EH.
I suggest calling Andy at Vintage Tube Services and discussing it with him.
Try some Tesla 6922s. Nicely balanced sound, never objectionable. I use them in my CJ Classic Sixty amp. Previously had the CJ stock supplied EH, then switched to the Genalex 6922 re-issues, liked them at first, but later found them a little hyper sounding. Of course, YMMV. Good luck either way.
I'm not as savvy as others here about tubes, but also have tube pre and amp and also had trouble swallowing a whole system upgrade cost-wise. The option that worked well for me was to identify which tubes had the highest impact on sound on my equipment, upgraded those first, then the next, and so on.

Search here in the forum who are the good, knowledgeable vendors. Talk to them.
Search the member system pages seeking the same equipment you have and ask them what has worked for them.

As Truman said, don't go cheap. It doesn't mean buying the most expensive tubes, though.