Recommend pre-amp tubes for Mesa Rectoverb Combo please

S

SemperRhythm

New member
Hi everyone,

I just changed over my power tubes in my Rectoverb to EH EL34's, and the difference is amazing. Really thickened up the tone, especially in the mids, and added some of that Marshall crunch. I wouldn't say it turned the Mesa into a Marshall, but it definitely sits somewhere between the two now tone-wise. I'm closing in on my tone :)

Now I'm looking to the pre-amp. They aren't bad by any means but I feel they could be a bit more "musical" and perhaps a little smoother and clearer. I'm guessing they are Sovteks.

Alrighty...

There are 5 pre-amp tubes...

V1, V2, and V3 are the pre's for the channels (1 and 2 are shared, 3 is for the OD channel)
V4 is the FX send / return
V5 is the phase inverter

What would be your recommendations for each spot? I'm leaning Electro-Harmonix throughout at the moment, but I'm open to any other suggestions.

Thanks everyone, I'm open to your adivce.

Nathan
 
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Re: Recommend pre-amp tubes for Mesa Rectoverb Combo please

EHX are great high gain tubes, but if you're going for smoother they're probably not what you're after.

JJ/Telsa will give you a smoother, darker sound overall.

I'd like to try some of those Groove Tubes, 12ax7-M (Mullerd copy) I keep hearing good things about. They're kinda pricy, but they come highly recommended, and are said to be very musical.

If price is a concern, get the GT 12ax7-M for your V1, and JJs for the rest. If possible, put another GT in the PI spot as well.

Either way, make sure you pay the little bit extra and put a matched and ballanced tube in the PI spot (V5). For peak PI performance, you want both sides of the tube as identical as possible.

PS - What power tubes did you put in it?
 
Re: Recommend pre-amp tubes for Mesa Rectoverb Combo please

screamingdaisy said:
PS - What power tubes did you put in it?
Click to expand...
Electro Harmonix EL34's from thetubestore.com. They matched them, and run pretty hot it seems. They have great crunch power, but the cleans suffer somewhat. I've considered trying JJs or Svetlanas to see if it helps the clean headroom... but the hotter clean channel is kind of fun to mess with for now...

Nathan
 
Re: Recommend pre-amp tubes for Mesa Rectoverb Combo please

Electoharmonix in all but #2, use a JJ ecc83 in #2. I find that the JJ tubes are a bit honky and mid oriented. The EH are more scooped mids but sound great. The JJ gives the tone a little more oomph without the overly aggressive mids of 5 JJ pre amp tubes.
Try experimenting with the position of the JJ. You may like a different order? I have a 2 channel dual rectifier. This combo seems to work for me.
 
Re: Recommend pre-amp tubes for Mesa Rectoverb Combo please

Thanks screamingdaisy and KLINKDETROIT.

I e-mailed Todd at Revolution Guitars with the same question and he sent me the following e-mail.


Hi Nathan, Thanks for your email. Here's what I would recommend for the preamp
1 GT 12ax7M in the V1 spot
JJ 12ax7's (ecc83's) for the rest of the preamp except for phase inverter
1 GT matched phase inverter tube, either 12at7 or 12ax7 depending on what tube your amp uses there, I've got both GT 12ax7's and 12at7's as matched phase inverter.

You could probably also just retube the entire preamp with JJ's with good results, but that V1 spot is critical and the GT 12ax7M is slightly better than the JJ 12ax7. Putting a matched phase inverter tube will help smooth out the overall tone also.

Thanks,
Todd Richards
Revolution Guitar


I'm set on getting a matched triode 12AX7 for the phase inverter. I may not even replace the V4 right now, since it is only the FX Send / Return and I'm not running anything through it currently.

I'll probably end up using the GT 12AX7-M for the V1 spot, since it seems to be THE #1 choice for "musical tone" and reliability.

As for V2 and V3... I'll probably get a JJ and an EH and swap them around and see which combination works best. Probably JJ in V2 (smoother cleans) and the EH in V3 (for the gain).

Wow... that's alot...

More valued experience is welcome...

Nathan
 
Re: Recommend pre-amp tubes for Mesa Rectoverb Combo please

Personally, I think the Chinese R9's are as good as it gets for affordable current production stuff. Maybe with a GT-M in V1.
 
Re: Recommend pre-amp tubes for Mesa Rectoverb Combo please

Dont care for Gt preamp tubes. I find them a little harsh. Try Ruby or EH then JJ. A few of my friends and I have done much testing and that is our conclusion in Mesa dual rectifier and Marshalls JMP & JCM800.
 
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