WHAT TUBES ARE GOOD?
i wanna know if n e 1 knows n e thing about tubes cause i got a dual rec. and i wanna know if the stock tubes work and sound better then other brands such as groove tubes ect. and of they are worth buying if n e 1 knows or has tried them let me know what u think
# 1
The stock tubes that come in amps are crap most of the time.
I would check out http://www.eurotubes.com if I were you.
I would check out http://www.eurotubes.com if I were you.
# 2
Tubes are alot like speakers, what you might like , I might not like, I would suggest you talk with others that own a dual rectifier, players with different styles tend to prefer different tubes, trust your ears, find a good tech that will take the time to bias your amp so it sounds good and not just go by a chart, great tubes can sound horrible if not biased correctly.......
# 3
Mesa Boogies come from the factory with Groove Tubes installed. They're good tubes, just not quite as magical as Aspen Pitman would have you believe. My own experience is that there is not much value in matching tubes beyond ensuring that they will all bias correctly at the same voltage. There are some audible variations in sound quality between diferent tube types, so changing your 6550's for 6L6GC's (or vice-versa) may be of interest to you. The main point in selecting good quality tubes is knowing who actually made them. Some tubes are better made in different countries/factories than others. You can google search for websites that offer opinions on who makes the best tubes of the type you want. Be prepared to sort out the truth from the hype. But then, any web research involves that.
Good Luck.
Good Luck.
# 4
cool thanks for the info guys i was just reading my owners manual about biasing the amp i really dont know that much about that kind of stuff but thanks for the info. oh yeah does n e of u ppl know of n e more good web sites about tubes let me know or about biasinf amps let me know thankx
# 5
So what is the opinon here of NOS tubes? It seems that a lot of people won't even use new tubes being made (which makes you wonder what's going to happen in 30 years when all the NOS tubes dry up). It sounds like a typical thing to create hype over, that old "they made things better back then" thing, but is it true? I currently don't have a tube amp, so any tubes are still a step up from the oversized POS I currently own. It probably is irrelevant to me anyway, I'm not sure how many dealers in Aus stock old tubes.
"Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year, it's just not that widely reported".
# 6
LOL... NOS (New Old Stock) is sometimes credited with mystical powers to grant the lucky owners magical tones which will render them invincible. Yeah, right. NOS is stuff that has been sitting, unused, in storage for a long time. Plain and simple. Depending on the storage conditions, and the quality of the original materials and manufacturing processes, some NOS tubes may indeed be superior to recent production. Or not. When you poke around, you are sure see the name Mullard refered to in a reverential (ie expensive!) sort of way. There are advocates on all sides of the Phillips vs. Westinghouse vs. RCA vs. Sylvania debates. Apart from some measurable differences like gain, or plate dissipation, its all [u]subjective[/u].
Some terminology: 'Hard' vs. 'Soft' vacuum: The lower the pressure inside the tube bottle, the 'harder' the vacuum is. Supposedly, a 'soft' vacuum produces a smoother onset of distortion, and a 'round', 'brown' sound, suitable for Blues. A harder vacuum is thought to cause a sharper transition, better suited to Metal. So, a tube from a factory that has a reputation for hard vacuum is favoured by Metal players, while Bluesmen flock to a maker of tubes with 'soft' vacuum. I get a chuckle out of the way people describe these sonic differences. It reminds me of the kind of crap that gets spewed out by most audiophile magazines, each of which has an in-house reviewer with 'Golden Ears'.
Case in point: 6L6 vs. 6L6GC vs. 6550 vs. 7027A: You will hear some really heated arguments about the relative merits, and supposed suitabilty/unsuitability of these tubes. The inside joke is ... they're all the same! The 6550 and the 7027A are constructed in a more robust fashion which allows higher voltages, which in turn permits more output power ([u]if[/u] the rest of the amp's circuits can support it), but in electrical terms, all of them have identical response characteristics. A metal player raves about how much more power and crunchier distortion he gets since he swapped his 6L6GC's for 6550's. A blues player swears he has much better 'vintage' tone since he got those NOS 6L6's. These guys do have better sound, but the solemn fact is, the real improvements they hear are mostly due to installing fresh tubes, [u]and getting the bias adjusted properly[/u].
The 'problem' with the quality of Marshall amps sold in the States about 25 years ago, was that the EL34 tubes installed in England before the amps were shipped stateside, were being damaged in transit, resulting in high waranty costs to the distributor. So the distributor replaced those 'fragile' EL34's with 'rugged' military-specified 6550's. 'Thing is, the bias was not adjusted to accomodate the slight differences between EL34's and 6550's. The result was 'bad' sound. Well, certainly not the same sound as the Marshalls in Europe and Canada. Properly biased, a Marshall with 6550's sounds very good. The transition from clean sound to hellacious doom-bringer distortion is more abrupt than with EL34's, but that's a good thing, to a metal player who wants to change his sound with a small adjustment at his guitar, without losing much loudness.
Some of the stuff you read is a legitimate attempt to quantify the sound quality of different types, and makers of, tubes. A lot of it is delusional crap.
Musicians are artistic people. Most of us don't know, or want to know, what goes on inside the gizmos we use. Sadly, there are many hucksters who prey upon that vulnerability.
[Edited by Lordathestrings on 06-11-2002 at 01:00 AM]
Some terminology: 'Hard' vs. 'Soft' vacuum: The lower the pressure inside the tube bottle, the 'harder' the vacuum is. Supposedly, a 'soft' vacuum produces a smoother onset of distortion, and a 'round', 'brown' sound, suitable for Blues. A harder vacuum is thought to cause a sharper transition, better suited to Metal. So, a tube from a factory that has a reputation for hard vacuum is favoured by Metal players, while Bluesmen flock to a maker of tubes with 'soft' vacuum. I get a chuckle out of the way people describe these sonic differences. It reminds me of the kind of crap that gets spewed out by most audiophile magazines, each of which has an in-house reviewer with 'Golden Ears'.
Case in point: 6L6 vs. 6L6GC vs. 6550 vs. 7027A: You will hear some really heated arguments about the relative merits, and supposed suitabilty/unsuitability of these tubes. The inside joke is ... they're all the same! The 6550 and the 7027A are constructed in a more robust fashion which allows higher voltages, which in turn permits more output power ([u]if[/u] the rest of the amp's circuits can support it), but in electrical terms, all of them have identical response characteristics. A metal player raves about how much more power and crunchier distortion he gets since he swapped his 6L6GC's for 6550's. A blues player swears he has much better 'vintage' tone since he got those NOS 6L6's. These guys do have better sound, but the solemn fact is, the real improvements they hear are mostly due to installing fresh tubes, [u]and getting the bias adjusted properly[/u].
The 'problem' with the quality of Marshall amps sold in the States about 25 years ago, was that the EL34 tubes installed in England before the amps were shipped stateside, were being damaged in transit, resulting in high waranty costs to the distributor. So the distributor replaced those 'fragile' EL34's with 'rugged' military-specified 6550's. 'Thing is, the bias was not adjusted to accomodate the slight differences between EL34's and 6550's. The result was 'bad' sound. Well, certainly not the same sound as the Marshalls in Europe and Canada. Properly biased, a Marshall with 6550's sounds very good. The transition from clean sound to hellacious doom-bringer distortion is more abrupt than with EL34's, but that's a good thing, to a metal player who wants to change his sound with a small adjustment at his guitar, without losing much loudness.
Some of the stuff you read is a legitimate attempt to quantify the sound quality of different types, and makers of, tubes. A lot of it is delusional crap.
Musicians are artistic people. Most of us don't know, or want to know, what goes on inside the gizmos we use. Sadly, there are many hucksters who prey upon that vulnerability.
[Edited by Lordathestrings on 06-11-2002 at 01:00 AM]
# 7
NOS, generally a bunch of hype, today their are probaly more good tubes being made than there were 25 years ago, I think NOS got it's big boost when the old manufacturers started dying off and the new guys hadn't got up to speed with quality or selection, ie.. 10 years ago you couldn't buy a new 7027, and NOS was the only way to go ( if you could even find a NOS 7027).
Lordathestrings, you ain't Ranting, just telling the truth!
BTW, if anyone is interested, I have a set of Genaflex Gold Lion KT-66's for sale, the most incredible sounding, high quality, British made, NOS big bottle, super duper tone, first $600US takes them home!
Lordathestrings, you ain't Ranting, just telling the truth!
BTW, if anyone is interested, I have a set of Genaflex Gold Lion KT-66's for sale, the most incredible sounding, high quality, British made, NOS big bottle, super duper tone, first $600US takes them home!
# 8
Thanks for the info Lordy, I knew I could count on you. As I said, just reading the way people rave on about NOS tubes is enough to make me very skeptical, as anyone who raves THAT much about something that's been sitting in a warehouse probably just feels the need to justify. As a buyer of a tube amp (soon), I am pretty sure that I'll get tones that I like without searching like a madman for those elusive EL34s.
"Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year, it's just not that widely reported".
# 9
Originally posted by BardsleyOOOPs! I just noticed that I wrote EL84 instead of EL34! My apologies to anyone who went out and bought preamp tubes for their power sections.
...those elusive EL34s.
# 10
Ha, now wouldn't that be funny for a guy who moderates the tech forum. "Why does my amp blow up if I force the EL84s in?"
"Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year, it's just not that widely reported".
# 11
Hey I just noticed I wrote "Genaflex" and not "Genalex", and as of today the price has dropped to $575US, Yes you can have that magical tone you have always dreamed of, The "elusive" Woman Tone! Yes folks, KT66's, NOS, High Grade, British Made, Mac Daddy, Monster Truck, just holding these tubes will give you better tone, Don't beleive the other guys, You've tried the Rest, Now try the Best!
* The above was not a Paid or Unpaid Advertisement, it is a parody provided for your entertainment only, pstring and/or pstring enterprises inc. international limited does not/will not/can not accept responsibilty for any personal/corprate or national risk, injury, or damage invoked or induced by the above mentioned parody.
* The above was not a Paid or Unpaid Advertisement, it is a parody provided for your entertainment only, pstring and/or pstring enterprises inc. international limited does not/will not/can not accept responsibilty for any personal/corprate or national risk, injury, or damage invoked or induced by the above mentioned parody.
# 12
I gave a bit of a description of what bias does here. I'm reluctant to give a detailed how-to procedure because its very likely someone's amp would get fried if I made a mistake, or my instructions were misinterpreted.
Power tube bias adjustment is important enough that its worth having a professional tech do it for you. While they're setting it up, they may catch other potential problems before they become serious. Compared to the cost of the amp, the fee for bias adjustment is a good insurance policy.
Power tube bias adjustment is important enough that its worth having a professional tech do it for you. While they're setting it up, they may catch other potential problems before they become serious. Compared to the cost of the amp, the fee for bias adjustment is a good insurance policy.
# 13
