Suhr

[Sven S.-M.]

Hi.
My Badger had serial #116 and is one of the early batches shipped with all Chinese ARS tubes. It needs a re-tubing now so I asked help desk about the tubes. Unfortunately Suhr help desk has a strange way of answering my questions to why JJ's are preferred as power tubes and V1 and a Sovtek as rectifier tube. No explanations, only repeted official Suhr tube information blah blah... Very disappointing!

Does any of you know why ARS tubes have been replaced by JJ and Sovtek?
Are these ARS no longer any good or what?

Thanks in advance

Sven

[cs@suhr.com]

Hi Sven. We are very sorry for any confusion and frustration and will try to clear things up.

We use a lot of ARS branded tubes, but it's important to know that ARS is a tube distributor; they do not manufacture the tubes. There are only a few tube factories in the world, but many companies distribute and rebrand the same tubes. For example: depending on the model, an ARS tube can be a JJ or Chinese tube.

For Badger preamp tubes we use an ARS branded JJ in V1 (the position closest to the input jack) and ARS branded Chinese tubes in V2 and V3. This is our preferred tonal combination.

For Badger power tubes we use the ARS branded JJs.

For Badger rectifier tubes, we use a Sovtek as we have found it to be the most reliable.

We hope that helps clear things up. Please feel free to let us know if you have any further tube questions.
_________________
Customer Service
JS Technologies / Suhr

[Sven S.-M.]

@CS.
Thanks for your reply. I must admit it was disappointing getting answers from someone who obviously didn't care to read my questions.

So any 12AX7 in will do - JJ in V1, Chinese in V2+V3 and JJ EL84 power tubes and Sovtek rectifier? Or are they special in some way?

Thanks in advance.

Sven

[cs@suhr.com]

That is correct, you can use tubes from any distributor. For what it's worth, distributors will have different standards/procedures for testing and matching tubes so some may be more consistent than others.
_________________
Customer Service
JS Technologies / Suhr

[Suhr]

[cragginshred]

What sort of biasing is required for the Badger 30 when changing tubes?

[digitalkettle]