Replacement Tube Suggestions?

[Aldwyn]

I posted this over on the gear page, but am not getting much responce, so I will try here as well. :D

I never did buy the new tubes for my Traynor, but I am starting to itch for a new sound... so it's time. (plus they are starting to get a little noisy in the clean channel... still very quiet in dirty)

Looking for a warm, vintage blues sound.

So... to replace 3 12ax7wa and 2 5881wxt what should I go with for quiet and lovely cleans and vintage sounding warm dirty?

BTW, I do not have to worry about biasing, as the Traynor is auto-biased.

Thanks!

Peace,
Aldwyn

[Stratmeister]

How much can you spend? New production or NOS? Cheap and quick would be the JJ's which I like, both 12AX7's and 6L6GC's. For NOS I swear by RCA 12AX7's and blackplate 6L6GC's. I also like 5751's up front if I need to reduce the gain a bit, and Tung Sol 5881's are the standard for a bluesy tone in my blonde Bassman. But unless you know your plate voltage and know they'll be OK, I'd stick with the 6L6GC's.

The Svet 6L6GC's are pretty good too, I don't care for the Sovteks.

You might consider dropping a line to Mike at KCANOSTUBES.COM and get his suggestions. For the JJ's you can also use Bob at EUROTUBES.COM.

[Aldwyn]

How much can you spend?

I was thinking about $100 for all 5.


New production or NOS? Cheap and quick would be the JJ's which I like, both 12AX7's and 6L6GC's. For NOS I swear by RCA 12AX7's and blackplate 6L6GC's. I also like 5751's up front if I need to reduce the gain a bit, and Tung Sol 5881's are the standard for a bluesy tone in my blonde Bassman. But unless you know your plate voltage and know they'll be OK, I'd stick with the 6L6GC's.

The Svet 6L6GC's are pretty good too, I don't care for the Sovteks.

You might consider dropping a line to Mike at KCANOSTUBES.COM and get his suggestions. For the JJ's you can also use Bob at EUROTUBES.COM. Thanks for the suggestions!

Peace,
Aldwyn

[Stratmeister]

OK, you can do new production tubes for that price. Figure $10 per 12AX7 and $35 for a pair of 6L6GC's, or there abouts. I don't know your tube compliment for that amp (# of tubes, purpose, like reverb driver/return, etc...) but the earliest stage tubes will have the most effect. [EDIT: I just reread your post and you said 5 tubes. Therefore I assume it's 3 12AX7's and 2 power tubes, no reverb right?] You might not need to fool with the phase inverter or reverb tubes if you have them, but certainly are worth playing with. If looking for noise or tonal changes I will typically change the first 12AX7 tube in a channel and compare it before making another wholesale swap of tubes. Listen and learn what difference it makes to your ears, then move on.

For tonal changes, breakup, etc... you're going to get the most bang for your buck from changing 12AX7's, I would guess that's the source of your noise. If you're looking for bluesy breakup I assume you're going fairly low gain from the preamp stages and higher volume power tube distortion. Once you get the preamp "tone" the way you like it, change the power tubes and see what it does to your headroom. Some people suggest changing the phase inverter when you change power tubes for reliability.

Since you said it's a self biasing amp, the power consumption of the 6L6's (maybe they're rated by color, cold/warm/hot or some similar description) will determine your headroom. Typically this is controlled by setting the bias. JJ 6L6's for instance are rated at a whopping 30 watts each, and can be biased quite cold and still sound good. This gives you extra headroom. On the other hand, at that high wattage rating you can bias them really hot and get lots of volume and that power tube saturation us classic rock/bluesy type players like.

I have also heard some good things about the new Groove Tube 6L6's, but haven't tried them. They will also be in your price range. "Generally" speaking, watch out for Chinese made tubes. The older ones were unreliable and didn't sound very good. I've heard the new ones are better, but don't see any need to try them.

I suggest giving Bob a call, tell him what your amp is and what music you're playing. He's real good at determining the type and rating of the JJ tubes to get you the sound you're looking for based on a short conversation.

Everybody should try different tubes in their amp. It really does make a difference in your tone, and you should always have some spares on hand. Have fun!

[Aldwyn]

<laugh!> Actually, in my orig message, not only did I say it was 5 tubes, I even said it was 3 X 12ax7wa and 2 X 5881wxt! :D I didn't mention that they are Sovtek and are about 2 years old... (they are orig tubes the amp came with).

Thanks so much for all the info, though! It's quite a bit of it to chew on! :) Much oblidged!

Peace,
Aldwyn

[jda]

I just put 2 of the Groove Tube Mullard reissue 12ax7s in my Allen Class act. They were a little pricey, but they do sound very good. I had Telefunkens in there, and I think I might like these GTs better.

If you were willing to up your budget some, you could get into NOS power tubes, or a set of the Groove Tube GE 6L6s - lots of people seem to like those.

[Stratmeister]

Dooh, I guess I read too fast. :o But now I'm curious as to the amp design. Is there just one 12AX7 per channel and one for the phase inversion? Or is it not a true 2 channel amp, and uses both 12AX7's in series for both channels with some circuitry switched in to add the dirt to the dirty channel? Peavy does this in the Classic series amps I know. Trying to figure the noise on one channel that you mentioned, that would leave me to believe that it's one 12AX7 per channel, and only the one for that clean channel is noisey.

I mostly work on tweed, blonde, and blackface Fenders and early Marshalls which have truely independent channels which would be a minimum of 4 12AX7s (most have 5 or 7, but the older circuit Bassman had one channel with a single 12AX7. Not much gain there...

Just curious. And at any rate changing one 12AX7 at a time is still the way to go.

[Aldwyn]

I'll see if I can find some time to dig up the paperwork for it, scan in the schmatic, and post it here for you to take a look at.

It'd make sense that each one of the 12AX7s were per channel.

Peace,
Aldwyn

[Aldwyn]

Thanks for turning me onto Bob at Eurotubes. He seems to be a great guy and seems to LOVE what he does and loves sharing info.

Because of that, and how inexpensive JJs are (about $60 for a full compliment, including shipping) , I am going to try out a full compliment of JJs.

2 6L6GC for the power tubes

and

1 balanced EC83S

and

2 EC83S for the preamp

We'll see how it goes!

Oh, and wish me luck... never done this before, and while I can see the 2 power tubes sticking out of the head, the 3 preamp tubes must be inside, so I will have to crack the sucker open! :eek:

Thanks!
Aldwyn

[Aldwyn]

Couldnt find the manual, but did find a service manual online, with schmatic...

http://www.yorkville.com/downloads/servman/smycv40.pdf

I don't read these things well, but it does indeed look like there is one preamp tube for each channel.

Peace,
Aldwyn

[Stratmeister]

Hey Aldwyn, I saw in another thread that you got your tubes. How do you like them so far?

[Aldwyn]

I have not had a lot of time to put them through the paces, but so far, they sound warmer with a bit more snap to the high end then the Sovteks... I will try and remember to post once I get a chance to put her through the paces.

Peace,
Aldwyn