Seeking advise on 6922 tubes for a preamplifier..

Yes, tube rolling can be exciting, addictive, and expensive. The 6dj8/6922 family can range from $10ea to $200ea. Having to deal with rolling 6 tubes at a time is very costly. A set of 6 gold pin tubes can cost you $450+. But on the bright side......... when you found just the right tubes.....! If you are interested in NOS tubes I suggest starting with Mullards, they have always been a sweet tube for me.

Hi Usa,

I have done some tube rolling on my CJ Premier 17LS. The difference between the stock Sovtek tubes and the Phillips
Mini Watts was signifigant. The noise floor dropped
dramatically with better extension on the top and bottom.
I ultimatley sold the 17LS but if I had kept it I would
never switch back to the stock tubes.

Good luck

I was tempted to do some 6922 "tube rolling" when I 1st got my new Herron Pre but avoided doing so 1) can get expensive, time consuming & not always beneficial (ie: experiences from owning previous tube gears) 2) there are cheaper options for eg: Herbie's HAL-O's tube dampers
http://herbiesaudiolab.home.att.net/
At least the HAL-Os provided an improvement to my stock Sovteks, overall better focus & tightening of the LF.

One thing to remember is that you can gain more or less benefit from a tube depending on their position. You might not need to replace all the tubes to get improvements. The amount of gain you need from a tube also influences how much risk you will take buying off Ebay. When I use tubes in my line stage, I only need 3 or 9 db. of gain, so I've been able to use almost everything I've bought over the years in that position. The phono circuit is a different matter, much tougher to get low noise in those positions. I've had quite good luck buying from sellers on Ebay, very few times have I been burned. The main thing to learn is how to recognize fakes and misrepresentations. The more desirable the tube the more likely to be faked.

Usually found modern Electro Harmonix to be a huge improvement over Sovteks.
Maybe not the absolute but very reasonably priced and always way more pleasant than Sovteks.
Rgds Simon