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Any love for the Gentalex Gold Lion 12ax7 gold pin?

I am not a fan of new production tubes but have to say I really like this tube better than my Telefunkens. The Telefunkens sound bright and not as musical.I also have some black plate RCA’s and early 60’s Mullards and others. I’m really enjoying these gold pin GL’s. Are they better than the RCA and Mullard not sure. But if you ask me today I say yes.

 

i emailed Audio Hungary a while back and asked what tube they voiced or preferred in the A50i and he said the Gold Lion gold pin with out a doubt are the best in this amp vs vintage tubes. I thought for sure he was wrong but he built the amp he must know something. Better than vintage he’s got to be wrong. What the hell I bought some, not cheap either. So I just received them and stuck them in and I’m very impressed. 
 

The amp also takes 4 6922’s and the amp came stock with Gold Lion gold pin but not a fan of those. I much more prefer my Amprex SQ, PQ’s, Valvo’s,and others. The Gold Lion gold pin 6922’ s sound sterile and lifeless compare to my vintage 6922 tube’s.
 

Anyone experience this with this tube or any other current production signal tube? I find it balanced all the way through. Little caught off guard with this one.

paulcreed
paulcreed OP
559 posts
 

The 6922’s GL gold pin can’t pull them out fast enough. I like them better than the Telefunken smooth plate but never was crazy about that tube anyway. 

tonydennison's avatar
tonydennison
408 posts
 

I like the sound of NOS better that the GLX7,         B...U...T...

The GL's have never let me down and they are 80% there....all day and all night...

noromance's avatar
noromance
9,823 posts
 

I can only conclude that your source may not be feeding the Telefunkens a clean enough signal to fully appreciate them. I see this a lot where folks say certain tubes are not musical. 

The Telefunkens sound bright and not as musical

bkeske's avatar
bkeske
5,597 posts
 

I have four Gold Lion 12ax7 gold pins in storage, they were the first I switched to over the stock tubes in my phono pre. A nice upgrade, for the money, but as @noromance inferred, I then replaced those with four old Telefunken smooth plates, and albeit being similar in tone, the Tele's were much smoother and really superior in all ways. After that I tried two 60's Blackburn Mullard's in combination with two of the Telefunken smooth plates, and liked that combo even more, in my setup.

All that said, yes, for the money, the Gold Lions are very good, but can be easily beat my venerable older tubes. But they will cost significantly more....but in terms of  'return on investment', an easy justification for me.

vinylvalet
902 posts
 

The JJ E83CC/12AX7 frame grid is my favorite current production 12AX7 at about half the price of the Gold Lion. A number of other folks have said the same. The Gold Lion is okay but not great and overpriced for what you get IMHO.

JJ E83CC/12AX7

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