want to retube my amp, please give help

[Marinblues]

Re: want to retube my amp, please give help

I've come to a conclusion that there aren't better tubes than others, just a "better tube for this amp" and a "better tube for that amp". I've just been through a tube change.

My Engl used 4 x Engl Ecc83 (Sovtek 12ax7WB) and 2 x Engl 5881 (Sovtek 5881). One of the 5881 broke down so I bought some 6L6EH (GCs) and while I was at it, I changed the pre-amp tubes to EH as well. According to reviews and popular opinion, the EH tubes are supposed to be a lot better than the WBs I had. It turned out that this was wrong for my amp. Th EH's where too harsh and I had to keep the treble and presence levels at minimum. I kept the output 6L6EH's, but I put the old WB's back in and the amp became warm again.

I rebiased tha 6L6 at a tube amp repairal shop and the when I asked the guy what are the best tubes, he told me about the "right tube for right amp" theory. He also said that the quality control on todays tubes is so bad, that the quality of the tubes of the same brand is very varied. He said that he has seen good Ruby's, bad JJ's, excellent Sovteks, etc.....and that the only thing that can be done is to test each tube individually for several hours or so in order to work out which are the good ones.

This would inevitably cause tubes prices to rise, so we concluded that purchasing tubes is always a trade-off between risk, quality and acceptable price.

Perhaps, this was a bit too fatalistic for me, but I fully agreed about the "right tube for right amp". My advise is to talk to people who own your exact amp and listen to their experiences.

Marin

 

[midnite_man]

Re: want to retube my amp, please give help

I've come to a conclusion that there aren't better tubes than others, just a "better tube for this amp" and a "better tube for that amp". I've just been through a tube change.

My Engl used 4 x Engl Ecc83 (Sovtek 12ax7WB) and 2 x Engl 5881 (Sovtek 5881). One of the 5881 broke down so I bought some 6L6EH (GCs) and while I was at it, I changed the pre-amp tubes to EH as well. According to reviews and popular opinion, the EH tubes are supposed to be a lot better than the WBs I had. It turned out that this was wrong for my amp. Th EH's where too harsh and I had to keep the treble and presence levels at minimum. I kept the output 6L6EH's, but I put the old WB's back in and the amp became warm again.

I rebiased tha 6L6 at a tube amp repairal shop and the when I asked the guy what are the best tubes, he told me about the "right tube for right amp" theory. He also said that the quality control on todays tubes is so bad, that the quality of the tubes of the same brand is very varied. He said that he has seen good Ruby's, bad JJ's, excellent Sovteks, etc.....and that the only thing that can be done is to test each tube individually for several hours or so in order to work out which are the good ones.

This would inevitably cause tubes prices to rise, so we concluded that purchasing tubes is always a trade-off between risk, quality and acceptable price.

Perhaps, this was a bit too fatalistic for me, but I fully agreed about the "right tube for right amp". My advise is to talk to people who own your exact amp and listen to their experiences.

Marin

Right tube for the right amp? If that was true, tube-sellers wouldn't be selling very many tubes, don't you think? IMO, there are certain tubes that a person would want to use for certain reasons. I talked to Bob at Eurotubes about this issue the last time I was in his studio. Some tubes are built with filament components that are more brittle than others, thus not flexing much when warmed up and creating more of a "biting" type sound than a tube like a JJ which are built to flex a little more and give the warmth. What Bob did for me was to punch the bias up a little to get what Xerxes is looking for, a sound that accomadates blues nicely, but can still rock along with the best of 'em. He can definitely explain the technicalities much better than I can.
People use different tubes for different tones. I don't think amp-brand is a big factor as much as what kind of tone(s) the user is wanting to get out of their amp.
Sure, there's always going to be a defective new tube here and there, no maker is exempt from that. But I do know that Bob puts his new JJ tubes through the appropriate tests before selling one to ensure quality.

 

[Marinblues]

Re: want to retube my amp, please give help

Right tube for the right amp? If that was true, tube-sellers wouldn't be selling very many tubes, don't you think? .

Why not? What other choice do we have?


Marin

 

[lastwinj]

Re: want to retube my amp, please give help

try some 5751 in the preamp. little bit less gain. can be better for classic type tones.

germ

 

[midnite_man]

Re: want to retube my amp, please give help

Why not? What other choice do we have?


Marin

I guess what I'm getting at is the type of tube you use in your amp should help give you the sound you desire, so with saying that I disagree that there are certain tubes that should only be used in certain amps. It's all relative.

 

[Marinblues]

Re: want to retube my amp, please give help

I guess what I'm getting at is the type of tube you use in your amp should help give you the sound you desire, so with saying that I disagree that there are certain tubes that should only be used in certain amps. It's all relative.

I'm with you. What I was getting at is that there is no one single brand which is better than others. For exemple: when I was asking for advise, everyone (seriously - everyone) told me that 12ax7eh's are "better" tubes than my 12ax7wb. I found them harsh and too trebly for my amp. I switched back to the Wb's and it was like taking a pin out of my ear.

I didn't want to imply that there is "One" tubes for "one" amp, what I wanted to say is that there are no absolute better brands or models of tubes which work for all amps.

Most of the advise I hear on the tube front is "get JJ's, they're better...." "get EH's, they're better....", and similar,.... irresepectively of the amp model or speaker or cabinet or type of music or guitar.

Tubes are just one component in the complex signal chain and whilst one may work well in one amp, another may not. However, therre will be as many solution to the problem as their are listeners, since tone is subjective.

Therefore, my suggestion is to speak to people who own the same amp since the electronics and the speaker will be (in most cases) the same.

One can than make their choice based on a more reliable source of information.

Simply because, to a certain user, a EH tubes works well in his Marshall JCM800, doesn't really help me since my amp is substantially different.

I don't disagree with your point, I am just clarifying what I said before.


Marin