Your opinions of the differences, good sirs.

[alteredbeast]

Re: Your opinions of the differences, good sirs.

I am crazy about 6V6 tubes personally. They squish and sag like nobody's business.

Gearjoneser mentioned the texture of the midrange and I can attest to it. They sound more harmonically rich than 6L6 tubes as well.

But yeah... the circuitry does make a lot of difference. The aforementioned example of Princeton vs Princeton Reverb is totally true. The "Princeton" is a thick and rich sounding amp with throaty mids and 3-D definition... but the "Princeton Reverb" is a snarling slice and dice factory with searing highs and loads of even order harmonics.

I think that the 6V6 is more musical to the more powerful 6L6.

The 6V6 has more character and personality compared to the rather stoic 6L6.

Two 6V6 will rattle the walls but two 6L6 tubes will rattle your dental fillings. What's weird is that you can get 6V6-like texture, harmonics, squish and sag out of a 6L6 but you have to drive it to the point where the whole neighborhood will be pounding on your door begging you to turn it down. Two completely different power capabilities.

that's a nice breakdown of explanation for cats like me, i dig.

I've found that the 6V6 has some real sweet spots if you try different gain factor pre tubes and different rectifiers. Using a lower gain factor pre tube like a 12AT7 or a 5751 and a 5V4 rectifier I could get beautiful cleans and chime and a really beautiful break up and touch-responsive feel when dimed. I didn't analyze it enough to write a review here, but I would say don't discount a tube type until you try changing other things around it. Just swapping power tubes alone doesn't always keep things in balance to get a good tone out of the tubes and the amp. The specific tube manufacturer can certainly make a significant difference also.

points well taken, thank you, man.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Your opinions of the differences, good sirs.

Humming like feed back, not desirable style? or hummin' like red hot "oh fvck yes" style?

option 2. The amp will be getting pretty loose and hot and a lot of fun to play thru. The power section will be overdriving. A good thing if that's what your after, but not good if you want more clean headroom/volume. Which is where 6l6's step in.

 

[Morior]

Re: Your opinions of the differences, good sirs.

Depends on the amp circuit. The first version of the Orange Rockerverb 50 watt head and combo had 4 6V6 tubes in it, and that kicked major balls. I have however heard 6V6 amp circuits that didn't work at all for anything other than cleans.