Replacing the tubes in my Fender Supersonic. Complete noob here.

[zzmoore]

Re: Replacing the tubes in my Fender Supersonic. Complete noob here.

It all will involve "Buy and Try" but .......Edgecrusher made a decently affordable suggestion above.....you could try a pair of 5881. They are less powerful, and will give you a sense of compression coming sooner in the sweep of the volume knob. There are 3-4 different modern day brandings available, and you might be able to find a reasonable price on NOS.
FWIW.......the 5881 is often Mike Soldano's tube of choice, for the power section in many of his amps.
good luck

 

[HALENisking]

Re: Replacing the tubes in my Fender Supersonic. Complete noob here.

thanks a ton guys :headbang: I have a much more solid understanding now to build off of. Will be in contact with a local tech to see what will be best for me! The 5881s definitely spark my interest.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Replacing the tubes in my Fender Supersonic. Complete noob here.

thanks a ton guys :headbang: I have a much more solid understanding now to build off of. Will be in contact with a local tech to see what will be best for me! The 5881s definitely spark my interest.

The new Tung Sol Reissue 5881's are great sounding tubes. Most 5881's on the market right now are not actually 5881's at all but are just low power 6L6's. The Tung Sol reissue is actually a 5881 in the way the plates are shaped and the envelope is done. They sound 90% or better as good as the originals. (They just lack some detail that the originals have when pushed hard in a low gain amp. When used for higher gain its a wash) The only downside to them at its the same downside to ALL modern tubes is that they dont last as long as the originals did but such is life in the modern tube world.

BTW as a side note. Many people especially around here will tell you to retube ALL your amp every time. I'm not big on this many times people change 12ax7's that are perfectly good. They dont wear out nearly as fast as a power tubes. Especially in modern circuits. If your amp hasnt been retubbed in 4 or 5 years go head and just retube all of it and then get a spare 12ax7 when you order your tubes. Then in a few years when you start thinking the tubes might need to be swapped plug the spare into your various preamp slots and if all of a sudden the amp jumps to life replace the 12ax7's but if the spare doesnt make any real difference dont sweat it and just replace the power tubes.

 

[allbutromeo]

Re: Replacing the tubes in my Fender Supersonic. Complete noob here.

+1 on the Tung-Sols, I put a pair in my 50w JCM900 and it sound much better compared to the Sovteks that were in it when I bought it. Livelier cleans, and much smoother when pushed

 

[HALENisking]

Re: Replacing the tubes in my Fender Supersonic. Complete noob here.

The new Tung Sol Reissue 5881's are great sounding tubes. Most 5881's on the market right now are not actually 5881's at all but are just low power 6L6's. The Tung Sol reissue is actually a 5881 in the way the plates are shaped and the envelope is done. They sound 90% or better as good as the originals. (They just lack some detail that the originals have when pushed hard in a low gain amp. When used for higher gain its a wash) The only downside to them at its the same downside to ALL modern tubes is that they dont last as long as the originals did but such is life in the modern tube world.

BTW as a side note. Many people especially around here will tell you to retube ALL your amp every time. I'm not big on this many times people change 12ax7's that are perfectly good. They dont wear out nearly as fast as a power tubes. Especially in modern circuits. If your amp hasnt been retubbed in 4 or 5 years go head and just retube all of it and then get a spare 12ax7 when you order your tubes. Then in a few years when you start thinking the tubes might need to be swapped plug the spare into your various preamp slots and if all of a sudden the amp jumps to life replace the 12ax7's but if the spare doesnt make any real difference dont sweat it and just replace the power tubes.

You're killing it with the crazy helpful tips man :clap: Why would modern tubes not last as long? I would think advancements in production would have occurred.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Replacing the tubes in my Fender Supersonic. Complete noob here.

Why would modern tubes not last as long? I would think advancements in production would have occurred.

Sadly no... Gotta remember in the US tubes started be become obsolete by the mid 1950's. The first like small portable transistor radios hit the market in 1952. I know Chrysler started to put transistor radios in their cars in 1955. The ability to make electronics smaller and cheaper with less heat was HUGE and everything headed that direction very quickly. Before this tubes were everything and were everyday items that almost all people purchased some amount of. So the demand was high and money spent on R and D could be recouped easily. But as they started to be phased out being it was old technology there wasnt the push to advance their design or production. Its like anything thats on the way out, development stops and the quality starts to fall.

After this the big electronics companies started to sell their tube manufacturing facilities to countries where tubes were still used. Many times the exact machinery was sold but what you didnt get or may have gotten but was ignored was all the proprietary data that had been developed. I dont have time to type an essay maybe another day. But all the old employees are either long retired or pushing up daisies. The technology is lost. (even then many of the processes used in metal coatings would be hugely expensive and very difficult to do with modern environmental regulations) The cost to redevelop it would be prohibitive as the market for tubes is tiny. Back in the day the costs were spread among a huge customer base cause everyone used tubes in the radios and TV's in their house.

The reality is the tube situation is hugely better now than it was in say the early to mid 90's. My very first amp was a Marshall JMP that I got dirt cheap. I found out partially why. It needed new tubes and 6550's were harder than hell to find. (keep in mind this was pre internet days)

Now the supply is good and relatively stable. Just the quality is meh. But even in china it is common for factories that are used to produce vacuum tubes get retooled to produce something more profitable.

I hope this answers your question I typed this out ina big hurry.

 

[allbutromeo]

Re: Replacing the tubes in my Fender Supersonic. Complete noob here.

Add to that, that most of the countries where tubes are manufactured are not renowned for their manufacturing QC.

 

[zzmoore]

Re: Replacing the tubes in my Fender Supersonic. Complete noob here.

It isn't the country.....it's the customer.
Imagine retubing your amp, and 3 pre tubes were 325 bux, and a pair of matched L6 were 250. Would you spend 600 dollars to retube your 400-2k dollar amp.?
How much were Tech Tubes 3 years ago.......100 bux.? They were never able to make a (mass) reproducible AX7 that people would pay for.
Tubes are labor, chemical, and power intensive. It's why they started making transistors..... smaller cheaper, more stable and require less power.
Tubes are a bit of a lost art, with a Very Niche market.

 

[HALENisking]

Re: Replacing the tubes in my Fender Supersonic. Complete noob here.

I think I can safely say this has been one of the most informative threads I've started. Cool! Yeah, I feel like a lot of the shroud of mystery has been lifted from tubes for me. I dropped the amp off with a tech today. I feel like I could have replaced them myself, (provided I could bias properly. Think I could with a multimeter) but I want him to go over the whole amp in general and clean/look for leaky caps/etc. Next time