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Post by gtrjunior on Jan 17, 2018 19:38:30 GMT -5
gtrjunior the tube buying maniac!! Let us know how it all turns out. I’m just praying that when I open up the amp nothing is fried. |
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Post by briman on Jan 17, 2018 21:10:13 GMT -5
I saw a vid of an amp tech on youtube saying you can power on the amp with no tubes in it to see if the fuse blows. If it does......it is not tube problem.
I will try and find it and post link here. I would want to be 100% sure it's ok though before doing it!
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Post by splawndude on Jan 18, 2018 0:59:27 GMT -5
Yes a 6CA7 = 25w Just my .02 cents First of all...by all means, feel free to buy tubes from Scott. I would never want to take that business away from him. Obviously, he knows his amps and knwos what works inside his amps. That said, you don't HAVE too. It is like people buying Mesa branded tubes because that is what Mesa recommends. For Mesa, that makes a bit more sense as their amps are non adjustable fixed bias. So they will sell you tubes that are 'spec'd' for the amp you are inquiring about. So if you know what you are buying and know the specs of your amp - you should be fine ordering whatever you want. Most of your big tube distributors - like The Tube Store, Tube Depot, Watford Valves, Hotroxuk, Dougs Tubes, Eurotubes, KCANOStubes, and to a smaller degree TheValveQueen, have tube testers and do the laborious, and boring, work of testing and matching 100's if not 1,000s of tubes. IF you give them your plate voltage, amp model, desired dissipation, desired tone, etc - they will match and send you what you need. There are more shops too, those are just the ones that popped into my head. IMO - each of these shops have their own benefits and disadvantages. Watford and Hotrox I've never ordered from because they serve Europe only. Conversely, Eurotubes sell in the US but they only sell JJs. I like Dougs tubes because he ships fast and sends you email/text updates immediately (at least he used to) and he has a wide selection. Unfortunately, he tends to recommend the same preamp sets to everyone lol. No experience with KCA but I'd like to order from them sometime. Laura at Valvequeen has several Splawn amps so she knows what is needed there. I bought my SED =C= from her that are currently in my Splawn. Yes the 6CA7 is the same thing as an EL34. It is the American version of the Euro based EL34. 25 watts yes. Keep in mind as a note, 25w is the max - which you will probably never hit. I think I read somewhere that 11 watts is probably all you'd push more likely in a practical environment. But yeah, 25 is what you want when you run your math. And maybe try 65% dissipation. See what that turns out to be. I bought my amp from a gigging artist local to me who gigged a lot. Those are the Mullard reissues I think that are shown in my tutorial. I actually broke the key off one time so I have to be real careful when I put them back in lol. They are in there today and still going strong so they are probably 10 years old now. But yeah, I suppose a 2 year life with heavy use on a current production tube shouldn't surprise me. I think it is safe to say that the older tubes were made better and last longer. Period. I don't think there is any tube manufacturer left that makes the kind of quality tubes as the old days. Maybe SED - but look how expensive those are now. I personally never had a lot of luck with Chinese tubes. Sovteks? Fine. JJ? Fine. Ruby (are rebranded BTW)? Fine. Shuguang? Fine. But none of these are great - like NOS. That is a lot of words and I'm not really a tube expert. There are people out there that I know that have much much more knowledge on this than I. These days it is even harder to determine what is what because people have bought out the Names and rights to use the name. Companies like New Sensor and Treasure and LG etc have it all upside down. I meant to mention earlier that actually a smaller OT is probably worse than a large. Big Iron is good for your amp and your tone. Sorry for the wall of text guys and YMMV  |
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Post by gtrjunior on Jan 18, 2018 5:36:37 GMT -5
Yes a 6CA7 = 25w Just my .02 cents First of all...by all means, feel free to buy tubes from Scott. I would never want to take that business away from him. Obviously, he knows his amps and knwos what works inside his amps. That said, you don't HAVE too. It is like people buying Mesa branded tubes because that is what Mesa recommends. For Mesa, that make a bit more sense as their amps non adjustable fixed bias. So they will sell you tubes that are 'spec'd' for the amp you are inquiring about. So if you know what you are buying and know the specs of your amp - you should be fine ordering whatever you want. Most of your big tube distributors - like The Tube Store, Tube Depot, Watford Valves, Hotroxuk, Dougs Tubes, Eurotubes, KCANOStubes, and to a smaller degree TheValveQueen, have tube testers and do the laborious, and boring, work of testing and matching 100's if not 1,000s of tubes. IF you give them your plate voltage, amp model, desired dissipation, desired tone, etc - they will match and send you what you need. There are other shops, but those are the ones that popped into my head. IMO - each of these shops have their own benefits and disadvantages. Watford and Hotrox I've never ordered from because they serve Europe only. Conversely, Eurotubes sell in the US but they only sell JJs. I like Dougs tubes because he ships fast and sends you email/text updates immediately (at least he used to) and he has a wide selection. Unfortunately, he tends to recommend the same preamp sets to everyone lol. No experience with KCA but I'd like to order from them sometime. Laura at Valvequeen has several Splawn amps so she knows what is needed there. I bought my SED =C= from her that are currently in my Splawn. Yes the 6CA7 is the same thing as an EL34. It is the American version of the Euro based EL34. 25 watts yes. Keep in mind as a note, 25w is the max - which you will probably never hit. I think I read somewhere that 11 watts is probably all you'd push more likely in a practical environment. But yeah, 25 is what you want when you run your math. And maybe try 65% dissipation. See what that turns out to be. I bought my amp from a gigging artist local to me who gigged a lot. Those are the Mullard reissues I think that are shown in my tutorial (actually no - those are my old Mullards). I actually broke the key off one time so I have to be real careful when I put them back in lol. They are in there today and still going strong so they are probably 10 years old now. But yeah, I suppose a 2 year life with heavy use on a current production tube shouldn't surprise me. This is partly why I run at half power. I think it is safe to say that the older tubes were made better and last longer. Period. I don't think there is any tube manufacturer left that makes the kind of quality tubes as the old days. Maybe SED - but look how expensive those are now. I personally never had a lot of luck with Chinese tubes. Sovteks? Fine. JJ? Fine. Ruby (are rebranded BTW)? Fine. Shuguang? Fine. But none of these are great - like NOS. That is a lot of words and I'm not really a tube expert. There are people out there that I know that have much much more knowledge on this than I. These days it is even harder to determine what is what because people have bought out the Names and rights to use the name. Companies like New Sensor and Treasure and LG etc have it all upside down. I meant to mention earlier that actually a smaller OT is probably worse than a large. Big Iron is good for your amp and your tone. Sorry for the wall of text guys and YMMV Tbh, the ONLY reason I ordered a set from scott is because with his numbering system I KNOW the tubes will be mA correct. I had read numerous posts about people buying tubes and then not being able to adjust the bias into the correct range without swapping out a resistor....I didn’t want the headache. But yes, I’ve been wanting to try different tubes in this amp for a while now. There’s a guy that posts here occasionally with music/videos he has written and iirc he said he used 6CA7 tubes in his QR and he had great tone so I wanted to try those. |
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Post by gtrjunior on Jan 18, 2018 5:38:08 GMT -5
I saw a vid of an amp tech on youtube saying you can power on the amp with no tubes in it to see if the fuse blows. If it does......it is not tube problem. I will try and find it and post link here. I would want to be 100% sure it's ok though before doing it! Yeah, I’d be interested in seeing that if you happen to find it. |
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Post by briman on Jan 18, 2018 11:48:53 GMT -5
Here is the video from youtube. The part where he talks about your exact problem is at 7:00 until the end. I would watch both his videos #1 and #2 when you have time.
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Post by gtrjunior on Jan 18, 2018 12:41:40 GMT -5
Here is the video from youtube. The part where he talks about your exact problem is at 7:00 until the end. I would watch both his videos #1 and #2 when you have time. I think you forgot the link!! |
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Post by briman on Jan 18, 2018 13:08:21 GMT -5
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Post by splawndude on Jan 18, 2018 13:20:27 GMT -5
I completely understand why one would want to buy your power tubes from Scott. Hope my post didn't come across as why you shouldn't.
Cheers guys,
I'll check out that vid later too.
Edit: I tried to make a few simple edits to my big post from yesterday and may have inadvertently edited gtr's lol. Sorry.
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Post by gtrjunior on Jan 18, 2018 13:25:03 GMT -5
Very informative Bri....thanks for that.
My amp did exactly as he described...blew a fuse, I replaced it and it blew again. But I’m too chickensh*t to pull the tubes and try tonpower it on again!!! Lol
I’ll just wait until the new tubes arrive and try them then.
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Post by gtrjunior on Jan 18, 2018 13:42:56 GMT -5
I completely understand why would want to buy your power tubes from Scott. Hope my post didn't come across as why you shouldn't. Cheer guys, I'll check out that vid later too. Edit: I tried to make a few simple edits to my post and my have inadvertently edited gtr's lol. Sorry. I didn’t take your post as that at all man! I appreciate all of the knowledge you and everyone else has taken the time to share with me. I also agree that the Chinese Tubes sure aren’t my first choice in tubes but I was just thinking of the ease of swapping. TBH, I’m going to put the JJ 6CA7 Tubes in first. I’m excited to hear them. I took your advice on the JJ preamp tubes too....LOVE them in V2/3. I put the high gain version in....like this amp needs more gain. Lmao |
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Post by cvogue on Jan 18, 2018 13:57:49 GMT -5
I completely understand why would want to buy your power tubes from Scott. Hope my post didn't come across as why you shouldn't. Cheer guys, I'll check out that vid later too. Edit: I tried to make a few simple edits to my post and my have inadvertently edited gtr's lol. Sorry. I didn’t take your post as that at all man! I appreciate all of the knowledge you and everyone else has taken the time to share with me. I also agree that the Chinese Tubes sure aren’t my first choice in tubes but I was just thinking of the ease of swapping. TBH, I’m going to put the JJ 6CA7 Tubes in first. I’m excited to hear them. I took your advice on the JJ preamp tubes too....LOVE them in V2/3. I put the high gain version in....like this amp needs more gain. Lmao But... to be fair gtrjunior... you do play with your gain jacked to the hilt no?!  |
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Post by gtrjunior on Jan 18, 2018 14:26:09 GMT -5
I didn’t take your post as that at all man! I appreciate all of the knowledge you and everyone else has taken the time to share with me. I also agree that the Chinese Tubes sure aren’t my first choice in tubes but I was just thinking of the ease of swapping. TBH, I’m going to put the JJ 6CA7 Tubes in first. I’m excited to hear them. I took your advice on the JJ preamp tubes too....LOVE them in V2/3. I put the high gain version in....like this amp needs more gain. Lmao But... to be fair gtrjunior... you do play with your gain jacked to the hilt no?! 😊 😎 I have been running gear 1 od2 lately and digging that. At the time we talked about me diming the gain I was playing around with gear 3!!! It was a bit much....lol |
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Post by gtrjunior on Jan 19, 2018 9:31:56 GMT -5
Ok....GREAT NEWS!! I had a set of RI Mullard EL34 Tubes on hand and just put them in the QR. I got them biased up and they are holding a 33mA setting. I went with 65% dissipation. Plate voltage was 475. The 6CA7 tubes are scheduled to arrive on Monday so I’ll leave the amp out of the head box until then. I have a few errands to run right now but when I get back I’ll fire up the amp and play for a little bit and report back then. splawndude....thanks a million for your biasing tutorial. It’s helped me both times I’ve biased. You did a tremendous job with it. Clearly you put a LOT of work into it....so thank you for that. |
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Post by gtrjunior on Jan 19, 2018 14:24:09 GMT -5
Just had a chance to play the QR with the Mullard RI tubes.
BIG difference from the stock Chinese tubes.
First:
The stock tube fed back like crazy. I was constantly on the guitar volume knob trying to control it. There’s a guy on another forum with an older QR. he often posts clips in 3rd gear and doesn’t have feedback issues. I once asked him about it and he said he has never had those problems.
So today I turned it up loudly and used all 3 gears...wouldn’t you know it...no feedback in any gear. Go figure, I probably had a tube going bad for a long time and didn’t realize it.
Second:
These tubes have a different character than the stock ones.
Plenty of present mids and tight low end. Not a “big” low end but tight. Even in Drop B+.
They didn’t seem to produce as much drive as the stock tubes though. I had the volume up around 10:30-ish...that’s enough to start getting some power tube satiation, I would think.
These aren’t bad tubes at all, but they aren’t staying in the amp. As soon as the JJ 6CA7 arrive, they are going in. I have a feeling they will be perfect.
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