power tube out in my HRD

matt99camero

matt99camero

New member
My roomie and I were playing tonight and when I went to unplug the amp I noticed one of the power tubes was not glowing and was cool to the touch. I don't know how long it's been out but I think I would have noticed it fairly quickly. I haden't noticed any difference in volume or tone but I've only been playing at bedroom levals for the past couple months. The amp is only a year and 3 months old but I guess it's time to replace the power tubes. According to the papers I got with the amp it says that there is no rebiasing needed when replaced with color coded sets, my tubes have the blue stamp on them. If it's just pull out the old ones, put in the new ones and not have to take it to a tech that would be better for me right now. But I was reading Justin Holden's site and found something odd. According to the HRD specs sheet he has, it says the power tubes that come with it are 6L6GC. My spec sheet that came with the amp says the power tubes are GT6L6B. Justin recomends to stay away from 6L6B tubes. I've been getting more and more in debt recently so it would be better to not have to pay extra for a tech, but I really don't want to sacrifice tone or safety of the amp so somehow I'll come up with the cash if needed. So should I go with 6L6GC tubes and have it rebiased or stick in the same type of tubes. Thanks in advance for the help.
 
Re: power tube out in my HRD

well i use 6l6b's & have since i got it & they work fine

a lot of the stuff on that site is for older hot rods

but you should rebias after every retube
 
Re: power tube out in my HRD

6l6gc is the type of tube
gt6l6b is the brand and model

there used to be tubes called 6L6, then they came out with a better tube that was similar in characteristics and could be used instead. nobody uses 6L6 tubes anymore. as far as i know everything today are all 6L6GC tubes.

the gt6l6b are groove tubes branded russian tubes. cheap, reliable but not the best sounding tubes. and even without biasing a new set of tubes will help the sound. you bias your amp so you are getting the best out of that specific set of bottles
 
Re: power tube out in my HRD

So what your saying is 6L6B tubes are exclusive to Groove Tubes? I'm kinda confused. Oh well. Since I'm gonna have to have it rebiased anyway I'm thinking maybe I should throw some better tubes in there while I'm at it. I've heard good things about JJ 6L6GC tubes. What's a good match for a HRD or some good tubes you guys have had experience with? Do power tubes or preamp tubes have a bigger effect the tone? I'd love to try out a bunch on tubes and see what I like but for now I just want to get it back to 100% working order.
 
Re: power tube out in my HRD

You should push the tube in and out of the socket a couple of times and see if the tube pin or socket is dirty or oxidized. Also, tubes are made with wire leads coming through the glass. The base is attached with these wires coming through the pins which are then soldered. Sometimes the solder joint is bad. Look at the ends of the pins and see. If you have an iron and rosin core solder, you can fix that. Heat the pin and feed a little solder into the pin. Try to keep it off the outside of the pin.

Looking at the bottom of a 6L6, the pins for the heater are 2 and 7. You count clockwise from the keyway on the center peg and the blank holes are counted as pins, so pin 1 on most 6L6s is blank. The first actual pin to the left of the keyway is pin 2.
 
Re: power tube out in my HRD

Well I took the tube out, put a little contact cleaner on the tube pins and pushed it in and out of the socket a couple of times to clean everything and still nothing. I'm thinking I'm going to go with JJ's. I'm actually thinking of sticking some 6V6s in their. I like the idea that it lowers the power about 10 watts and makes it eaiser to get tube saturation seeing as I've never played any where that I've had to turn the volume above a 4. Anyone used these tubes in place of the 6L6GC tubes?
 
Re: power tube out in my HRD

I e-mailed Bob at eurotubes and he recomended me the matched set of JJ 6V6 tubes that are grade #30-#32 and to go with JJ ECC83's for preamp tubes if I want to upgrade those also. I think I'm gonna go with the 6V6's and not sure if I'm gonna upgrade the preamp tubes also since they are still working at the moment. Should I upgrade the preamp tubes while I'm at it? I don't think I want to attempt to bias it myself even though I just bought a multimeter. This is my first tube change and I'm gonna take it to my tech so is there anything specific I should tell him about the bias or will he know what to do?
 
Re: power tube out in my HRD

Hmm, so a set of 6V6s could have negitive effects? Bob says the JJ 6V6s will work fine so can I trust his judgement?
 
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