Custom valve kits from Watford Valves

[Max Normal]

Has anyone had experience of these? I have an Ampeg SVT3Pro which has a valve preamp stage and a mosfet power amp stage, so I'm interested in some preamp valves.

here are various replacement preamp valve kits on Watford Valves at a variety of prices and a variety of different claimed tonal qualities.

Do they really reliably make the huge difference in sound as described in each kit description, and do you think it's a real improvement on the standard valves? And do the higher prices reflect the actual quality of the improvement in sound, or just the availability of the particular valves.

It's a bit of a shot in the dark to drop £80.00 - £200.00 when you can't hear them before you buy.

[T-Bay]

I can't speak for any of those, but was surprised by a friends combo which was identical to mine except for a cheap replacement valve. The tone was awful compared to mine, he has since switched to an NOS one and it sounds much better. So I would say 100% that quality of valves does affect tone. How that relates to these products I can't say though.

[Lozz196]

I bought a set of their higher-gain valves for the SVT 3-PRO and it did do exactly as described. Didn`t turn the amp into Lemmy, but there was definately more "hair" to the sound than before, and made the 3-PRO sound more in the realms of SVT-like than before.

[paul_5]

I retubed an SVP PRO preamp using their tubes and the difference between those and the stock tubes was staggering. Yes, Watford Tubes aren't cheap, but you gets what you pays for - particularly with tubes.

[Max Normal]

Thanks for the replies, I can buy with confidence