Alan Ratcliffe wrote
Thank you! You just saved me from importing hugely overpriced tube vibration dampers to try and squish some of the microphonics in my EF86 tube.
Speaking tubes - do you know of a good source locally? I just spoke to Graham at Bothner's and it's basically Sovtek and EH new valves, and his own personal NOS stock that he's not selling (understandably - Mullards and Brimar).
I just typed an essay only to have Internet Explorer crash <Insert assortment of profanity>
Anyway, the O-rings work well. Just make sure they are the thickness I mentioned. Too much surface area touching the tubes can negatively affect the tone (in my experience anyway). That's why the guys selling tube dampers online say their products are superior to O-rings. With the thin O-rings it becomes a moot point because there is very little surface area in contact with the tube anyway. They work great!
Try Mr Valve in Sandton - 011 783 1685
They do JJ and Ei and the usual assortment of Russian EH variants (EH, Sovtek, Tung-Sol, Mullard RI, Ruby). I'm not a fan of EH-made valves though as I find them to be overly bright and thin vs the Ei and especially the JJ valves.
The JJ valves are top-notch and the general tone (having tried the ECC82/83, EL84, 6L6 and EL34s) is on the warmer and fuller side vs the normal Russian/ Chinese-made stuff. Reliability seems to be much better as well. Funny enough, most of the top studio valve mic pres I've seen the inside of lately are JJ equipped. I'd say they're definitely a noticeably better upgrade over stock valves (generally EH) IMO. You could also try Groove Tubes (I think done through Fender), but I don't know if they do EF86s. They're also made by EH, but the QC is much better and they are made to different specs so they generally sound better than EH.
