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I have no NOS tubes in my Marshall. I discovered tube amps after I joined this forum. Shortly after buying my first tube amp I ordered some NOS tubes, and have been a fan ever since. I recently tried some of the new Groove Tubes 12AX7's, and was so impressed I went out and bought enough to retube my entire amp.

I had been running a NOS RFT and BugleBoy in the gain stage (v1) of my Marshall for the primary dirty tones, and a NOS RCA Blackplate for the clean tones. I switched to a 12AX7-C in V1 and a 12AX7 in V2. Immediate and noticable differences in clarity, gain, sweetness...all around tone. So I spent about 2 hours last night just trying the C's and M's in all positions, and tried some of my NOS tubes as reverb driver (V4), 3rd gain stage (V3) and even as phase inverter (V5 if you will). None of them sounded as good in this amp as the Groove tubes. Here's what I ended up with.

V1 - C
V2 - M
V3 - C
V4 - JJ for Reverb
PI - M

Nothing sounded better. The M is a little too smooth for my taste in V1, but warms up V2 wonderfully and gives a great clean tone. C was just a bit harsh in the PI slot, but it may be becauses it wasn't balanced enough. I did not buy any of the tubes specifically balanced for the PI slot, although I will now and see how much difference it makes.

These tubes are still a bit pricy for some at $15-22 a tube, but they are cheaper than the majority of NOS tubes, and at least for the higher gain Master Volume amp, they are the schnizle.

Jeff H is going to go broke purchaseing NOS Tubes.

Not NOS, Groove Tubes New 12AX7-C and 12AX7-M.