The Gold Lion ECC83 / B759 is yet another great 12AX7 vacuum tube from Russia and another in the line of large plate dual triodes. By my count we have the Sovtek 5751, Sovtek 12AX7 LPS, Mullard and now the Gold Lion brand. A quick glance and you might think they were all the same but careful inspection reveals physical differences in construction and plate coatings. Listening to these tubes reveals even greater differences.

It is very smooth and pleasing to the ear. I attribute this to the broad midrange response. In audio or guitar equipment, grating highs and booming lows will give you listening fatigue or make you think your amp just sucks. The Gold Lion’s voicing is such that the midrange response seems full, while the highs and lows are nicely controlled. This tube would be great if you are retubing one of those classic old radio consoles. It would also be great in a Marshall JCM800 series amp to tame the bright channel and cut some of the crazy high end.

The best news with the Gold Lion ECC83/B759 amplifier tube is that I could not get one to feed back at major sound pressure levels in a combo guitar amp. Finally.

This tube in your first gain stage will deliver a most pleasant reproduction of your audio source or make your guitar amp sound warm with real creamy drive when pushed with hotter pickups.

NOTE: For those of you that love to take a pencil and whack hot tubes, you will be rewarded with a satisfying, loud, “PING”. It’s the nature of the beast with any large plate dual triode used in V1. If you get uncontrolled squealing at higher volume levels or if touching the amp causes a ringing noise you probably have a genuine microphonics problem. If you like to tap your tubes all the time to see if they are microphonic, you will likely cause a genuine microphonics problem.