I've rolled tubes in CJ, ARC, and Sonic Frontiers Preamps since the 1980's.

I tube roll in my Jolida 302B with great effect. How come all you guys have Macs, anyway?

Tube rolling is not limited to McIntosh. I have purchased five of the most recent McIntosh preamps. In particular, the tube preamps have a sound I prefer.

Easy....

Quality design & build
Durability
Solid performance
Amazing sound quality
Effortless power up to 2KW
Functional protection circuits
Classic attractive design
High resale value
And those iconic blue meters

Almost everyone does it, it's part of the appeal of tubes. Some brands and circuits respond more positively to rolling than others. One one side I've had Rogue amps that show huge improvement with top quality vintage tubes versus the stock Electro Harmonix or JJ's - almost to the point that they seem to NEED some rolling. On the other I've got VAC amps that are voiced so damned beautifully with its stock tubes that it can be an exercise in frustration to find NOS blends that effect some improvement without upsetting the delicate voicing balance and losing some magic - those amps really don't need any rolling at all to render music in a shockingly beautiful manner.

Recently rolled in a fresh set of tubes (matched RCA 12BZ7, Tung-Sol EL84 & Tung-Sol EL34) in my Rocket 88 and very nice improvement in sound.
Same with the Elekit preamp.......... NOS JAN Phillips tubes made a big improvement over the stock JJ tubes, which had essentially no bass.
Many people seem to like JJ tubes. My experience is that they are OK if you have nothing else, but should be replaced at the first opportunity. YMMV.

Necrothread

Craig - is that from "Riddick"? :thumbsup: Terrific movie. Only beaten by "Blade Runner" in the SciFi genre.

BTW - have you tube-rolled in your C1100 or 2301s?

Just an observation of the rebirth of a 6 1/2 year old thread.

I have replaced the OEM Tubes with Genelux Gold Lions in both. But no interest in running other tubes through them.

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BDxdAK_1d...d-colonies.jpg

a chance to begin again...

:naughty: