Northern Electric 12AX7 Preamp Vacuum Tube
The Northern Electric 12AX7 preamp tube is made with the highest quality materials. Everything is designed to give you unsurpassed audio quality. This tube has very large smooth plates. This design is much like a Telefunken 12AX7 / ECC83 smooth plate but a bit shorter. This design provides plenty of gain while maintaining an extremely low noise floor. It has been torture tested in a JTM 45, a Deluxe Reverb, anOrange 50 watt combo, and Bandmaster Reverb, with no failures or noise problems after hundreds of hours in clubs and studios. It doesn’t matter if you use an American or British design, this tube works.
In our listening tests it was easy to hear that the tube did not change the voice of the amplifier as some preamp tubes do. The Northern Electric enhances the sound across the entire spectrum. Our testers have reported no noticeable spikes or weakness in the lows, mids, or high end. The highs are very smooth with a balanced midrange response and warm, full bottom end.
Other Northern Electric tubes12AX7 Types
Additional Information and Downloads
Reviews:
12AX7 Tube Review
Tube Matching Information:
Matched Sections Service
Warranty Information and Return Policy
Warranty Period: 6 monthsAll our tubes are guaranteed for 6 months from the date of purchase. (Any exceptions will be noted on that tube's Warranty tab)
If you receive a tube that does not perform to the manufacturer's specifications, please do the following:
- contact us to get a return authorization
- return it via regular mail within 180 days from when we shipped it, and we will provide an exchange or refund of the full purchase price of the tube.
Returns not related to warranty or defect will be considered at our discretion, and are subject to a 15% restocking fee.
We can not accept returns that don't have an authorization, are past 3 month, or are returned improperly.
These guidelines may be updated without notice.
Ratings & Reviews
41 reviews
Northern Electric 12AX7 | Poor reliability
by ivan
The poorest quality tube I’ve ever purchased. I purchase 2 of these NE-12AX7 to try in my zesto phono stage. The first problem was the output on one of the tubes was half the power of the other one as soon as it was plugged in. The service from Tube Store was fantastic. They replaced it quickly. Installed them back in again put about 5 hours on them. Then another tube became very noisy (major tube rush even at lower volume settings. I didn’t ask for another one cause I’m concerned this will never end. Too bad cause I think they may have been good sounding tubes.
Northern Electric 12AX7 | Sound Great, but Unreliable
by David
I've had two of these NE-12AX7 fail back to back in very short order in guitar amps. Which is too bad, because they sound great when they work.
Great tubes!
by Ed -
These are great tubes, very clean sounding, low noise and extremely well balanced. The tubestore guys are first rate. I needed some customer service help afterwards, and they replied promptly and totally to my satisfaction.
Amazing
by Mike -
I bought 2 of these. put one in V1 of my JCM 800 and one in V1 of my Splawn Super comp. awesome sounding tube in both. great crunch and a nice spark on the tsil end of high notes when being driving. absolutley love these tubed.
Great sounding. DID NOT LAST!
by Brian
Bought a matched quartet about a year or so ago. Used them in an audio tube pre amp for hifi applications. I hate to give them a bad review because indeed they were the best sounding 12ax7 I've ever used but at 200 bucks a matched quartet and to not get more than a little over a year out of them and they started to test poorly is no good. No good. What a shame. Sound wise they are nice and quiet and a ton of detail. Went back to using my old telefunkens.