5881 versus EL34

[fretburner]

I've read that the 5881 is a "military" version of the 6L6? How true is this?

And does this make the JCM900 4501 more of a Fender than a Marshall?

How does the 5881 compare to the EL34? Can I substitute the EL34 to the 5881?

Thanks!

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

The 5881 was the military version of the 6L6 form the 1950's

A Marshall is a Marshall and a Fender is a Fender no matter what power tubes you use...some guys relate the ton that comes form some Fender amps to a 6L6/5881 and putting those power tubes in your Marshall maght give it some of that tone but it is still a Marshall circut and will sound like a Marshall, same goes form El34's in Fender amps.

As for the 5881/6L6 vs EL34's 6L6's have a bigger more solid bottom end and a nice glassy treble while the EL34's have a bit more of an edgy midranmgy tone...those are very vauge descriptions but they'll get you started as for swapping them you have to mod the amp a little to be able to swap the 5881 for an El34

 

[seafoamer]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

A Marshall is a Marsjall and a Fender is a Fender

this made me LOL.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

The original 5881 was developed for the US Navy in the late 50's. They specified a smaller bottle, more heavy duty 6L6GC. 6L6 type tubes are beam tetrodes. Fenders used these 5881 through out the late 50's and early 60's. A 6L6 tube is noted for it's detailed clean tone, and raggy distortion once overdriven.

The very first Marshalls used 5881's, but soon switched to European huge bottle KT66's.

The 5881's used today and through out the 90's isn't really the same exact tube as the old extinct American 5881.

The modern 5881 was developed for the Russian military during the cold war. It produces less power and has earlier breakup compared to an American 5881.

The EL34 was created in Great Britian during the 1950's originaly as a Hi Fi tube. It's a Pentode rather than a tetrode. It produces more loudness and a strong clear midrange up to clipping. The EL34 can be overdriven further past the point of clipping compared to a 6L6 type. EL34's tend to give a more violinesque singing solo tone once overdriven. Guitar players that play alot of single note solos tend to prefer EL34's in Marshalls.

EL34 powered Marshalls seem to be louder than with a Russian design 5881. Up loud, they seem to "snarl" more in the mids too.

 

[fretburner]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

the more i'm convinced that the EL34s are the power tubes for me... the only amp that i really liked which don't have EL34s are the fender twins... but i didn't like their dirty channels...

also, is it possible that 6L6s won't fit into the amp because they're bigger than the 5881s?

i can get a jcm900 4501 really cheap, but i know i will have to modify it, so i might end up paying more than what i would want to pay for it.

 

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

I use both....

The 6L6 generally speaking has more clean headroom,is rounder sounding,nice full clean lows....I always think of BF Fender and Mesa tones...The 6L6 doesn't really compress like the EL34...

The EL34(Thin bottled type)....Give up the headroom quicker,compress,mids come out more(Because of the circuit)...This is the British tone of a Marshall,Hiwatt,etc....

The circuit these tubes are in would react differently in each amp though....The 5881 tubes in some of the SLX 900 series Marshall amps did still sound like a Marshall,but they didn't sound right to me where I'm used to hearing the EL34s....

 

[ErikH]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

fretburner, look at the tubes in the 4501. If it has 5881's in it, you can swap in 6L6's easily, just get it rebiased. There's more of those amps out there with 5881's stock than EL34's. They came with EL34's for the first four years they were made, approximately. The rest of the '90's they came with 5881's.

John, I agree 110% with you on the SL-X. Great amp but lost the mojo when they switched to 5881's.

 

[fretburner]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

fretburner, look at the tubes in the 4501. If it has 5881's in it, you can swap in 6L6's easily, just get it rebiased. There's more of those amps out there with 5881's stock than EL34's. They came with EL34's for the first four years they were made, approximately. The rest of the '90's they came with 5881's.

John, I agree 110% with you on the SL-X. Great amp but lost the mojo when they switched to 5881's.

hopefully, i'll be able to check the amp out next week. the owner said he's replaced the tubes with some japanese tubes. he claims the old tubes were weak and you couldn't get enough volume out of the old tubes.

 

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

fretburner, look at the tubes in the 4501. If it has 5881's in it, you can swap in 6L6's easily, just get it rebiased. There's more of those amps out there with 5881's stock than EL34's. They came with EL34's for the first four years they were made, approximately. The rest of the '90's they came with 5881's.

John, I agree 110% with you on the SL-X. Great amp but lost the mojo when they switched to 5881's.

To me....The 5881/KT 66 tubes were all about the JTM 45 amps...After that(in my opinion)a Marshall is all about the EL34s....The SLX didn't grind right with those Sovtek 5881 tubes..

 

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

hopefully, i'll be able to check the amp out next week. the owner said he's replaced the tubes with some japanese tubes. he claims the old tubes were weak and you couldn't get enough volume out of the old tubes.

You mean Chinese....

 

[JeffB]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

To me....The 5881/KT 66 tubes were all about the JTM 45 amps...After that(in my opinion)a Marshall is all about the EL34s....The SLX didn't grind right with those Sovtek 5881 tubes..

Agreed...

I actually heard some great clips of a 5881 900...couldn't believe it actually..head was unmodded but the fellow did have it biased either very hot or very cold, cannot remember.

That said..recording can do wonders for tone, that in person would drive you crazy :laugh2:

 

[ErikH]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

To me....The 5881/KT 66 tubes were all about the JTM 45 amps...After that(in my opinion)a Marshall is all about the EL34s....The SLX didn't grind right with those Sovtek 5881 tubes..

I couldn't agree more.

I was working in a music shop when Marshall made the swap to 5881's. When we fired up the first SL-X that came in, one of the guys and I looked at each other like, WTF??? :eek13: Same with the 4100/4500 Dual Reverbs. We did happen to have a Dual Reverb that was loaded with EL34's right next to it so we plugged in to that and it blew the SL-X out of the water tone-wise.

 

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

I couldn't agree more.

I was working in a music shop when Marshall made the swap to 5881's. When we fired up the first SL-X that came in, one of the guys and I looked at each other like, WTF??? :eek13: Same with the 4100/4500 Dual Reverbs. We did happen to have a Dual Reverb that was loaded with EL34's right next to it so we plugged in to that and it blew the SL-X out of the water tone-wise.

I was closely following the problems and reliability problems of the tubes that were available at that time...After the Tesla and Siemans EL34s went away,nobody was making a decent EL34...The Chinese EL34 was the only one available and it was a terrible tube both for tone and reliability....The Sovtek 5881 was the only tube that would hold up at the time...Soldano and Fender were using these pretty exclusively at this time along with Marshall...When I bought my Mesa Tremoverb brand new in 94 or so,Tien at mesa told me to stay clear of the Chinese EL34s or to have 2 sets as backups...Oddly enough,my Tremoverb came with Chinese 6L6 Coke Bottle tubes...

At that time I started stocking up on Tesla,Siemans,and NOS Mullards....Most of these I still have and some Svetlana tubes...

Marshall at that time had no other choice than to offer the Sovtek 5881 tubes or they'd bury themselves in reliability problems...

 

[ErikH]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

I was closely following the problems and reliability problems of the tubes that were available at that time...After the Tesla and Siemans EL34s went away,nobody was making a decent EL34...The Chinese EL34 was the only one available and it was a terrible tube both for tone and reliability....The Sovtek 5881 was the only tube that would hold up at the time...Soldano and Fender were using these pretty exclusively at this time along with Marshall...When I bought my Mesa Tremoverb brand new in 94 or so,Tien at mesa told me to stay clear of the Chinese EL34s or to have 2 sets as backups...Oddly enough,my Tremoverb came with Chinese 6L6 Coke Bottle tubes...

At that time I started stocking up on Tesla,Siemans,and NOS Mullards....Most of these I still have and some Svetlana tubes...

Marshall at that time had no other choice than to offer the Sovtek 5881 tubes or they'd bury themselves in reliability problems...

I remember that too. It was a dark day hearing all that about the EL34's where I was working. In '96 when a buddy of mine that was working at GC told me about my 900 MkIII, said it was EL34 loaded, I ran (well, drove rather quickly...lol) over there to check it out. Walked out with it in hand, or hands (the thing is heavy..lol). It appeared to still have the stock tubes but they sounded fine so I left them in there until better EL34's became available without spending too much.

It was the only move Marshall could make. Thankfully they survived all that with minimal problems. The SL-X is durable, and the Dual Reverbs had minimal issues, if any that I can remember. Their tone just suffered a bit to me, and you too obviously.

 

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

I remember that too. It was a dark day hearing all that about the EL34's where I was working. In '96 when a buddy of mine that was working at GC told me about my 900 MkIII, said it was EL34 loaded, I ran (well, drove rather quickly...lol) over there to check it out. Walked out with it in hand, or hands (the thing is heavy..lol). It appeared to still have the stock tubes but they sounded fine so I left them in there until better EL34's became available without spending too much.

It was the only move Marshall could make. Thankfully they survived all that with minimal problems. The SL-X is durable, and the Dual Reverbs had minimal issues, if any that I can remember. Their tone just suffered a bit to me, and you too obviously.

It's not that the SLX sounded bad,but it did sound different...It was maybe slightly more polite for lack of a better explanation? :laugh2: I think Marshall also dialed the amp in for the 5881 tubes from what someone told me..At that time all of the 12AX7s were all Chinese also...After that,the Sovtek 12AX7 WA and WBs came out...

 

[ErikH]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

"Polite" is a good way of putting it. :laugh2: I like my Marshalls to be rude, and that means EL34's in the power section. The Chinese pre-amp tubes I didn't have much of a problem with. I did prefer the Sovtek's when they came out though. Now, EH for me.

 

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

"Polite" is a good way of putting it. :laugh2: I like my Marshalls to be rude, and that means EL34's in the power section. The Chinese pre-amp tubes I didn't have much of a problem with. I did prefer the Sovtek's when they came out though. Now, EH for me.

Yes....Agree with you 100%...

I Love 6L6 tubes in my BF Fender stuff,but not in my vintage Marshall...

 

[fretburner]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

You mean Chinese....

no, he said japanese - hitachi or something. weird, aint it? he changed tubes like 3x already.

 

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

no, he said japanese - hitachi or something. weird, aint it? he changed tubes like 3x already.

The Japanese haven't made any tubes in ions that I Know of? Those must be older tubes..

 

[Scott_F]

Re: 5881 versus EL34

tubes, ions... nice slip.

I've got a set of these new production Mullard (new sensor) EL34's and have not had a chance to pop them into the Matchless yet. I hope to have some reports out soon on them.