5881 and 6L6

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: 5881 and 6L6

So if I get some 6L6's for my Traynor, it will break up later, but still basically sound the same? Do I have to worry about biasing if the amp is supposed to be auto-biased?

Well the bias will effect the response of the tube and it's headroom, perhaps moreso than the differences between different tubes of the same general family of tubes.

On amps without adjustable bias, it's best to replace tubes with tubes as close as possible to the tubes the amp was set up to run. I find that with adjustable bias amps, I must usually adjust the bias slightly with new tubes, even if the replacements are the same type, brand, and grade, as the ones it replaces. A friend had a SF Fender without a real adjustable bias, and he had to replace the original RCA 6L6's with a current production 6L6. The amp made about 1/2 the power, because the bias wasn't optimized for the replacement tubes, although the new 6L6 tubes closely matched the specs of the older tubes on paper.

A 7581, or a winged C 6L6GC, will have noticably more headroom than a Russian 5881, assuming their are properly biased.

 

[jeremy]

Re: 5881 and 6L6

and they will also sound different.


larry, i dont have any experience with the old 5881 but the new ones wont give you any where near that power. when scott sent me my most recent celtic he sent me a pair of the new tung sol 5881 and tad 6l6 short bottle and the short bottles put out WAY more at the same bias

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: 5881 and 6L6

I emailed the techs at Traynor, and they said that I can set the amp to work with EL-34s by changing a resistor on the circuit board. I was just wondering if there's a special proceedure that I'd have to do to run the amp with 6L6s, or if they're close enough to 5881s that the auto-bias would still work . . .

 

[jeremy]

Re: 5881 and 6L6

you could plug 6l6's in and they would work, not sure of the auto bias but i would assume that the bias should be reset for the best tone

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: 5881 and 6L6

I agree. The bias should be close enough that nothing would be hurt. However, there's no way that we could accurately predict how it would sound. You may have to just try and see.

 

[Stratman]

Re: 5881 and 6L6

and they will also sound different.


larry, i dont have any experience with the old 5881 but the new ones wont give you any where near that power. when scott sent me my most recent celtic he sent me a pair of the new tung sol 5881 and tad 6l6 short bottle and the short bottles put out WAY more at the same bias

The older 5881 put out a lot more power than the new-breeds for sure.

Have you tried some NOS in your Celtic, yet?

I swear that there is a real tonal difference in the NOS tubes and new-breed tubes currently on the market.

 

[jeremy]

Re: 5881 and 6L6

i have a set of rca black plates that i use for recording and they sound amazing in the bandmaster circut but i dont use them for live work so they will be around for a while