Grant fidelity TJ Full Music 12AX7 Listening Results

[ehoove]

Ian at Grant Fidelity was kind enough to include me in his offer to try out these tubes, and here is the result:

While I'm not sure he knew I would only need one of these tubes, I have been careful to burn them in equally time and playing wise. I thought it would be helpful to include my earlier shoot out of tubes in my Bellari VP129 phono preamp for reference purposes. These tubes are around 3x the price of the shoot out tubes.

Earlier Shootout of Re-issue 12AX7 tubes

The Mullard 12AX7 Re-issue is the overall winner. Silky smooth midrange/fast resolving top end, and tight solid bass with tons of upper-bass definition. It has a wide deep sound stage with precise player placement. Sounded a tad too warm until after around 15 hours when the pace picked up and took off.

2nd place (Tie) The JJ Telsa ECC83S showed more air in the top end, slightly dryer in the mid range, with good solid bass. not quite as rich as the Mullard, and a shallower sound stage but quite good. Great match with the Sumiko BluePoint #2

2nd place (tie) The Sovtek 12AX7LPS had a overall very nice presentation with just a hint of dryness on female vocals, but very solid on Rock and Roll pieces tighter sound stage but deeper than the JJ Telsa. Was my favorite tube with the Denon DL160.

3rd Place TungSol 12AX7 This tube just did not get it done for me, but didn't do anything wrong. It just did not make me want to put it back in after 3 turns. Wide Un-defined sound stage with medium depth. I may still try another one as it may just be that sample, because I know some really like this tube

4th Place goes to the Groove Tube 7025. This was the brightest of the group, with a real solid overall presentation, that at first was almost hypnotic in the detail area, although it was very fatiguing after a short time. I like this tube and thought it rated much higher over Christmas when I used it with my Allison Two's. It is just too bright a tube to use with the MGIIIa Ribbon Tweeters IMHO

Here are the findings on the TJ Full Music 12ax7 after burn in and listening.

Wide open sound stage rather deep with very good player placement. Mid range was silky and a tad dark. The bass was solid tight and fast, with upper bass to die for. The top end ..... Silky smooth and very delicate with good attack and pace. The stick hitting the cymbal was there, and the ride was right on. Vocals were very lifelike and believable. Overall a solid if not amazing presentation. At 3 times the price of the Mullard re-issue, it is still a value in my book worth a solid look. This tube will be my new Bellari VP129 Tube. For Now :>) If Ian will sell me just one!
Regards,
Jim

While these are my ratings please note the equipment listed as I really feel system synergy has a lot to do with the final result. I will have some time this weekend, and will redo the test using my AKG K701 headphones straight into the headphone output of the Bellari VP129, which is how I listen to Vinyl with the Cans. I will then compare the results.
Regards,
Jim

Update 09/26/2009

I have re-evaluated the results using my AKG K701 Headphones and feel very good about the MGIIIa's, as the headphones confirmed my earlier findings. This re-evaluation was accomplished using the headphone out of the Bellari VP129 as well as the line outputs of the Bellari into the line inputs of my Little Dot 1+ headphone amp using NOS Tung-Sol 6028 tubes. the Little Dot 1+ really improved the K701's output. The Bellari is just not capable of the output level of the Little Dot 1+. After all the dust cleared the TJ came out just ahead of the Mullard Re-issue overall, with the TJ presenting a much smoother top end, and slightly better mid-range definition.
Regards,
Jim



__________________
Main>Acurus L10/Bellari VP129,Acurus A200-A200X3,Beringer CX2310 X-over,Pro-Ject RM5SE/SpeedboxII/Sumiko Blackbird,Marantz SA8001 SACD,Magnepan MGIIIa,NHT W2 Sub,Cans:AKG701

[iGrant]

Thanks Jim,

Nice to have so many new production to compare against.

How I like to explain the TJ FullMusic 12AX7 in our gear that uses that tube is it is like a component upgrade when compared to the stock tubes, where other tube swaps are more of a roll, different flavour with tradeoffs. Do you feel that the TJ gave an across the board improvement over stock? Pro or Con is cool, it is great that those interested will know if it should do the same in their gear.

Cheers,
Ian

[ehoove]

Over the stock tube? A Huge improvement. The only tubes that in my mind on my system that really hung with it were the Mullard Re-issue and the Sovtek LPS. The Mullard was really close being just a tad less open, with an ever so slightly brittle top end. The Sovtek was drier in the midrange and a narrower sound stage The TJ Full Music is a very balanced tube, with no real failings to focus on. IMHO
Regards,
Jim

[lordearl]

Was there an audible difference between the gain of the full music compared to the other reissues? It seems like a lot of the new production 12AX7 have far more gain that NOS 12AX7 tubes...

[ehoove]

Very close in gain between the top 3. IMHO
Regards,
Jim