Had: Bugera 6262 combo, 212 loaded w/ Celestion V30 + MESA Black Shadow C90, 412 extension loaded w/ four Celestion G12-65's
EXPERIMENT: After reading up on it, took the plunge, pulled two outer (rightmost & leftmost) 6L6's from my Bugera 6262. Compensated by setting the switch to 8 ohms "nominal" (what the switch says) for 16 ohm "real" (what the speakers actually are) impedance, then switch @ 4 for single 8 ohm speaker... EVERYTHING WORKED!!!
1st impression (pulled tubes only, running 2x12 still): somewhat quieter volume, WAY quieter noise level (??? - m/b noise picked up by each tube multiplies per tube or smthn? or was one of mine worse than the rest?)... otherwise amp sounds quite familiar, no radical tone shifts or anything. Noise drop was MASSSIVE-massive, reminded me of an ISP Decimator on/off youtube demo I saw. About the same level of change, seriously!
Then realized you could throw what was supposedly 60w at any ONE speaker. Tried first with the C90 since it was the highest-rated, realizing everything went well, tried the V30 too.
Single speaker experiences, channels & pickups found effective and not:
MESA C90 alone: BEST. 10/10. sounds like a grownup member of the 5150 family, doesn't get too crazy at low gain settings, everything manageable. surprisingly almost-bright hiend sparkle, but very even sound nonetheless.
w/ EMG 81 : decently even sounding @ flat EQ (all further comments - same EQ) on all channels, very useable for hard rock and stuff too, not just metal. NICE CLEANS, believe it or not
w/ EMG 85 (neck) : veeeery nice cleans (green channel), pretty versatile crunch (yellow channel), very pronounced in your face bassy crazy metal tones - but not entirely badly so (red channel)
w/ Super 70: average sounding green channel (strangely, EMG 81 did better!), hardrocky yellow channel (pretty nice), hairmetally red channel (far more controlled gain than expected, would have to dial it up more for true modern metal tones)
Celestion V30 alone: ...unexpected results. preferred C90. ****USELESS*** yellow/crunch channel, excellent cleans though. noisier and more of a one-trick pony on red channel (very metal)
w/ EMG 81: good green/bad yellow/decent red
w/ EMG 85: too-bright (!) green channel/horrible horrible yellow channel/harsh bassy but possibly useful for some things on red channel
w/ Super 70: ...FORGOT. NEED TO TRY.
Carvin 4x12 running 4 Rola Celestion G12-65's (again, 2 powertubes for 60w, impedance halved on switch):
w/ EMG 81: okish, kinda quiet except in very low frequencies, seems to push air way more than produce audible volume. less gain than expected, quiet clear/defined notes
w/ EMG 85: compressed and boomy, near-unuseable on all channels
w/ Super 70: results similar to single C90's, except everything moreso... SOUNDS LIKE A DIFFERENT AMP. like a jcm or something. red channel sounds like you'd normally expect of the yellow channel, yellow channel sounds like slightly pushed green channel, and the clean channel itself sounds quiet. running off two power tubes, a 4x12 of 65's turns the 6262 into a lower gain 80s amp!!!
...darnit, why do I only have one C90???? Btw, for effecive volume (not one specific frequency being loudest, but overall), the Black Shadow C90 was louder than the V30 (which was overall quieter, but had louder "spikes"), heck, louder in the audible frequency range than the entire 4x12 of 65's (which had more subaudible bass kick, aka "pushed more air", though). Unexpected, eh?
In the 65's defense, they just were a bit underfed for halfpower at the settings I ran the test on (I wasn't going for loud levels, it was a Saturday morning after all, and the whole test was for exploring lower-volume applications anyway).
CONCLUSION: Single C90 BLACK SHADOW = VERY VERY veeeeery nice for halfpower'd 6262/6505+ w/2 power tubes, set to half the C90's ohmage (amp set @ 4ohms for 8ohm C90) & mid-lowish gain (green/yellow channel: pre & post at 2-3, red channel pre 4-6 post 1.something)
EXPERIMENT: After reading up on it, took the plunge, pulled two outer (rightmost & leftmost) 6L6's from my Bugera 6262. Compensated by setting the switch to 8 ohms "nominal" (what the switch says) for 16 ohm "real" (what the speakers actually are) impedance, then switch @ 4 for single 8 ohm speaker... EVERYTHING WORKED!!!
1st impression (pulled tubes only, running 2x12 still): somewhat quieter volume, WAY quieter noise level (??? - m/b noise picked up by each tube multiplies per tube or smthn? or was one of mine worse than the rest?)... otherwise amp sounds quite familiar, no radical tone shifts or anything. Noise drop was MASSSIVE-massive, reminded me of an ISP Decimator on/off youtube demo I saw. About the same level of change, seriously!
Then realized you could throw what was supposedly 60w at any ONE speaker. Tried first with the C90 since it was the highest-rated, realizing everything went well, tried the V30 too.
Single speaker experiences, channels & pickups found effective and not:
MESA C90 alone: BEST. 10/10. sounds like a grownup member of the 5150 family, doesn't get too crazy at low gain settings, everything manageable. surprisingly almost-bright hiend sparkle, but very even sound nonetheless.
w/ EMG 81 : decently even sounding @ flat EQ (all further comments - same EQ) on all channels, very useable for hard rock and stuff too, not just metal. NICE CLEANS, believe it or not
w/ EMG 85 (neck) : veeeery nice cleans (green channel), pretty versatile crunch (yellow channel), very pronounced in your face bassy crazy metal tones - but not entirely badly so (red channel)
w/ Super 70: average sounding green channel (strangely, EMG 81 did better!), hardrocky yellow channel (pretty nice), hairmetally red channel (far more controlled gain than expected, would have to dial it up more for true modern metal tones)
Celestion V30 alone: ...unexpected results. preferred C90. ****USELESS*** yellow/crunch channel, excellent cleans though. noisier and more of a one-trick pony on red channel (very metal)
w/ EMG 81: good green/bad yellow/decent red
w/ EMG 85: too-bright (!) green channel/horrible horrible yellow channel/harsh bassy but possibly useful for some things on red channel
w/ Super 70: ...FORGOT. NEED TO TRY.
Carvin 4x12 running 4 Rola Celestion G12-65's (again, 2 powertubes for 60w, impedance halved on switch):
w/ EMG 81: okish, kinda quiet except in very low frequencies, seems to push air way more than produce audible volume. less gain than expected, quiet clear/defined notes
w/ EMG 85: compressed and boomy, near-unuseable on all channels
w/ Super 70: results similar to single C90's, except everything moreso... SOUNDS LIKE A DIFFERENT AMP. like a jcm or something. red channel sounds like you'd normally expect of the yellow channel, yellow channel sounds like slightly pushed green channel, and the clean channel itself sounds quiet. running off two power tubes, a 4x12 of 65's turns the 6262 into a lower gain 80s amp!!!
...darnit, why do I only have one C90???? Btw, for effecive volume (not one specific frequency being loudest, but overall), the Black Shadow C90 was louder than the V30 (which was overall quieter, but had louder "spikes"), heck, louder in the audible frequency range than the entire 4x12 of 65's (which had more subaudible bass kick, aka "pushed more air", though). Unexpected, eh?
In the 65's defense, they just were a bit underfed for halfpower at the settings I ran the test on (I wasn't going for loud levels, it was a Saturday morning after all, and the whole test was for exploring lower-volume applications anyway).
CONCLUSION: Single C90 BLACK SHADOW = VERY VERY veeeeery nice for halfpower'd 6262/6505+ w/2 power tubes, set to half the C90's ohmage (amp set @ 4ohms for 8ohm C90) & mid-lowish gain (green/yellow channel: pre & post at 2-3, red channel pre 4-6 post 1.something)
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