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My DSL came with a 65 watt creamback in it, which was a nice added bonus (bought used of course). It had also had the C19 mod, so I has some use for the first channel on the red side. But, it always sounded kind of dark and lacked the clarity I wanted, even with the treble and presence pretty high. I thought it must be the crappy original power tubes, since I'd changed pre amp tubes and found some improvement. So I put in a great pair of NOS Siemens EL34's from East Germany, but my tech couldn't get then biased any lower than 90% dissipation. My bias resistors need to be updated if I want to keep using these tubes, so I am going to pull them and use some current production power tubes.
In the meantime, the amp sounded much better, but still not what I wanted. Too dark still, unless I dimed treble and presence and I didn't care for that sound. Then I listened to a clip Gearjoneser posted in another thread; a comparison between the 65w creamback and the 75w creamback. Wow, what a difference in tone. The 75w sounded clear, crisp and not muddled. That must be it I thought. I knew JeffB had one for sale in the Trading Post, so I snapped it up.
Fast forward two weeks and I've been really ill, so today was the first day I felt like putting it in. Installed it and fired it up, and it was much better; significantly better. I was able to turn the treble and presence down and boost the lows and mids. Now, the speaker only has about 20 hours on it according to Jeff, so it's not broken in yet, but I'm fairly sure this is what I'm looking for. It will sound much better with another 20-30 hours on it. I may need to hook up a sound source to it and let it play for a few days. I still need to get the new power tubes installed as I don't want to just burn through $150 worth of NOS tubes. I think that having new power tubes running at about 39mA each will get this back in spec and sounding as good as it can for what it is.
It's not my old JCM 800, but it has some decent tones in it and a surprisingly good clean channel. I'm still going to sell it later this year and get a Slpawn Street Rod 40w combo. Then I'll have what I really want.
It's amazing what the price of a different speaker will do for the sound of your amp. It might turn one you struggle with into a keeper.
In the meantime, the amp sounded much better, but still not what I wanted. Too dark still, unless I dimed treble and presence and I didn't care for that sound. Then I listened to a clip Gearjoneser posted in another thread; a comparison between the 65w creamback and the 75w creamback. Wow, what a difference in tone. The 75w sounded clear, crisp and not muddled. That must be it I thought. I knew JeffB had one for sale in the Trading Post, so I snapped it up.
Fast forward two weeks and I've been really ill, so today was the first day I felt like putting it in. Installed it and fired it up, and it was much better; significantly better. I was able to turn the treble and presence down and boost the lows and mids. Now, the speaker only has about 20 hours on it according to Jeff, so it's not broken in yet, but I'm fairly sure this is what I'm looking for. It will sound much better with another 20-30 hours on it. I may need to hook up a sound source to it and let it play for a few days. I still need to get the new power tubes installed as I don't want to just burn through $150 worth of NOS tubes. I think that having new power tubes running at about 39mA each will get this back in spec and sounding as good as it can for what it is.
It's not my old JCM 800, but it has some decent tones in it and a surprisingly good clean channel. I'm still going to sell it later this year and get a Slpawn Street Rod 40w combo. Then I'll have what I really want.
It's amazing what the price of a different speaker will do for the sound of your amp. It might turn one you struggle with into a keeper.
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