Whats on your turntable tonight?

@bkeske Hi Brian. Afraid not. Amperex 7316 are meant to be top 12AU7. CBS-Hytron have a great reputation. To be honest, you can’t go wrong with black plates. I had an amp that called for 12AU7/ECC82 and I swapped in a long black plate Brimar CV5042. It draws more heater current but man, it had such a "black" background and air, I was blown away. Are your Brimars (British Manufactured American Radio) black plates?

Orff, Sylvia Greenberg, James Bowman, Stephen Roberts, RSO Berlin, Choir – Carmina Burana (London 1984) side 1

Digital and sounds it. I never noticed when buying it.

Edit: It’s not too bad now that it’s got more fortissimo. Clean recording. Just some pinched graininess in the upper mids on massed voice.

Edit: This is great. On to side 2.

@noromance 

My Brimar’s are NOS CV4003 originally from Upscale. And no, not black plate. Yea, the Amperex are said to be quite good, but obviously much more $$$.

As I say, these were pretty inexpensive, (only $58 for 2 shipped), so can hardly go wrong to experiment a little. Many have said they are quite good….we’ll see. 

Ah, CV4003. I had those and another version, Mullard M8136. Both box plates. Not a fan when I had them in my Croft phono back in the 80s. Too creamy sounding for me. If yours sound like that, the new ones en route should be interesting!

Aretha Franklin. I never loved a man the way I loved you.