Tubes

[Riffmeister]

Ok, now that I am back among tube ampage , I want to know some more stuff about them. Before I would jsut pay someone to put what ever they recomened in my MArshall , but can't do that anymore as money is an issue.

This amp uses 6l6's So keeping the money thing in mind, what are some decent ones and what kind of charecteristics do they have?

This amp supposedly has a fixed Bias, so does that mean as long as I get a matched set of tubes, I can jsut pop them in and out ?

Something I have been hearing about with the preamp is to put a lower gain tube in the phase inverter position, anyone have anything to add about that?

I initially heard that cause this amp only has 3 preamp tubes that it didn't have a lot of gain, well it has more gain on it than I ever used on my Marshall.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

get S.E.D. Winged C powertubes. and have them put in by a qualified tech.

leave the preamp tubes for now. down the road if you are not happy with your tone you can try replacing them yourself. (preamp tubes don't wear out like power tubes. they either work, don't work, or have microphonic issues.

[Riffmeister]

Thanks! It's not that I am unhappy, I jsut got the amp about 2 days ago, but I remmber just trying out this tube and that tube before jsut looking for different sounds.

According to the tubestore, they recommend just what you said for the power tubes, and tung sol pre amp tubes. That was for the HIGER price and they had some JJ power tubes and something else for the preamp, but I can't remember for the lower cost. They were specifiacally remomended for my amp.

But just like they say, I may have different tastes that what they think, so I wanted some opinions from you guys who have actually heard any of these particular tubes .

[Spivonious]

You only need a tech to replace your tubes if the amp requires re-biasing. You definitely want matched pairs/quads no matter what. I've never seen a guitar amp that lets you bias each tube independently.

Preamp tubes don't need to be matched. Try to find a schematic for your amp so you can tell what each tube is doing. Lower gain tubes like the 12AT7 or 12AU7 are good for reverb and phase inverter positions, and higher gain tubes like 12AX7 are good for gain stages (assuming you want maximum gain boost). You will get some coloration from the preamp tubes. Some are darker, some are warmer, some are brighter, etc.

As far as 6L6 tube characteristics...honestly you'll never hear the differences unless you're blasting the amp and even then it is very slight. A speaker change or preamp tube change makes a much more noticeable difference.