Dreamin90s
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- Joined
- Feb 2, 2025
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In the mid to late 90’s I put el34’s (mesa brand) into my rev g DR. the change wasn’t drastic, it was noticeable. It gave the amp a overall nice mid push, the full spectrum of mid range. Nothing spikey. Ran that amp on bold with the recto tubes. Lived on the orange channel, had a great heavy high gain tone for 90s stuff like AIC, soundgarden and early foo’s… I played Les Paul’s, they all had 498ts in the bridge…
Sold it, got out of music in the early 2000’s
Here I am all these years later, playing again, just at home. I picked up a 2018 multiwatt
Dual rectifer. No intention of going this route. But I picked up the head with a late 90s Mesa 4x12v30 cab… the cab is the good v30s… guy just wanted it out of his house, he had it on marketplace for $1000! He wasn’t a player, he acquired it from someone that owed him money some years back…. So here I am with a half stack in my home office lol… yes, there seems to be a learning curve with the compared to old rev g.
It appears to have stock tubes - 6l6 str 440’s all 4 say blu 10 on the bottom. I pulled v1 it’s a mesa tube, no idea country of origin, says nothing but mesa… this head is super bright and a bit brittle / harsh in the high mid / high end… I know it’s not a rev g, but figure I could get a usable tone just to enjoy at home…
So first thought, put in el34’s like the rev g back in the day! Well Mesa was sold out of everything a few weeks ago….
So I called Eurotubes, talked to them for about 30 minutes what I use to have, how I ran it and what I like…. They recommend jj el 34’s along with these cz recto tubes….
The tubes came, the quad of power tubes were all marked “24”, they said didn’t matter what socket, they are all matched… fair enough…
Popped them in along with the cz whatever jj rectifer tubes…. The volume on the amp greatly increased. I suspect maybe the 6l6s were probabaly coming to their end? (Oddly previous owner draw with a marker on all 4 tubes from left to right 1,2,3,4 - that’s not how they are paired, not sure what that’s about)… anway… after 5 minutes I pulled those gz tubes out. They sounded like I was running the diodes on steroids! No warmth, super seper tight. I’m sure they would be great for people playing 7-8 string missagah stuff, or trash metal with a lot fast triplet picking… out the old 54ugb’s back in…. Much better…
But… these jj el34’s are like a buzz saw! While the brittle high mid / high end is gone, these things have a serious spikey 1-2.5k push! In general it’s a huge mid range push. I was running channel 2 on vintage at like 2 o’clock, with these tubes I had to pull it back to 10 o’clock, but they are still steaming at me…. Channel 3 modern, it took some of that md scoop out (which I like) but it’s got a harsh high mid / high… They are far from smooth. Pretty dissapointed…. I don’t recall such a drastic change back in the day when I switched the rev g over…. Best way to describe these jj’s they BITE, they don’t GROWL.
So I check Mesa website last night and they now have el34 str 446 and 447 in stock. I have no idea what I would have had in the mid to late 90s from Mesa…. I sure has heck don’t want to waste $400 on two quads of power tubes to see what MIGHT work better…
Today I woke up and decided to really spend some time with the amp…. I dropped it 50 watts so I could get the volume on both gain channels up to 10 o’clock with out killing what’s left of my ears… the amp seemed to open up a bit now… I also moved from bold to spongy to try and pull the voltage back. Learned the presence control a little better with this multi watt…… the buzz saw seems to be tamed now, that was mainly from going to 50 watt and flipping the voltage over to spongy….. learning the presence better helped with the brittle highs… now channel 3 modern with the mids at 3 o’clock remind me more of the rev g on orange! Channel 2 vintage is just meh… it’s really boxy with the mids at 9 o clock. It does sound like I’ve lost some gain / distortion. I run both channels around 2 o clock.
So, now that I’ve figured out the presence with this thing… should I pop the old 6l6 back in and see what happens? Back in the day I really liked what el34’s did to rev g. Everyone loved my tone…. I was like a Dr had a kid with a Marshall… had that Dr growl but had more of a Marshall note clarity…no fizz…
So these mw dr’s not like el34’s?
What power tube should I be looking into? I’d prefer staying with the high priced mesa tubes, I used them 30 years ago and I am not all that happy with these jj’s even though I think I have them under control a bit… I’d like to get back to bold, running the recto tubes. Spongy fixed the jj issue, does it pull the voltage down voltage in pre to?
love to hear everyone’s thoughts, I’ve just awoke from a 20 year music coma… things have changed a lot…
Even though the amp is only 7 years old and supposedly sat for the past 2, should I pop new 54ugb’s in?
Thanks, hope to hear everyone’s thoughts!
Sold it, got out of music in the early 2000’s
Here I am all these years later, playing again, just at home. I picked up a 2018 multiwatt
Dual rectifer. No intention of going this route. But I picked up the head with a late 90s Mesa 4x12v30 cab… the cab is the good v30s… guy just wanted it out of his house, he had it on marketplace for $1000! He wasn’t a player, he acquired it from someone that owed him money some years back…. So here I am with a half stack in my home office lol… yes, there seems to be a learning curve with the compared to old rev g.
It appears to have stock tubes - 6l6 str 440’s all 4 say blu 10 on the bottom. I pulled v1 it’s a mesa tube, no idea country of origin, says nothing but mesa… this head is super bright and a bit brittle / harsh in the high mid / high end… I know it’s not a rev g, but figure I could get a usable tone just to enjoy at home…
So first thought, put in el34’s like the rev g back in the day! Well Mesa was sold out of everything a few weeks ago….
So I called Eurotubes, talked to them for about 30 minutes what I use to have, how I ran it and what I like…. They recommend jj el 34’s along with these cz recto tubes….
The tubes came, the quad of power tubes were all marked “24”, they said didn’t matter what socket, they are all matched… fair enough…
Popped them in along with the cz whatever jj rectifer tubes…. The volume on the amp greatly increased. I suspect maybe the 6l6s were probabaly coming to their end? (Oddly previous owner draw with a marker on all 4 tubes from left to right 1,2,3,4 - that’s not how they are paired, not sure what that’s about)… anway… after 5 minutes I pulled those gz tubes out. They sounded like I was running the diodes on steroids! No warmth, super seper tight. I’m sure they would be great for people playing 7-8 string missagah stuff, or trash metal with a lot fast triplet picking… out the old 54ugb’s back in…. Much better…
But… these jj el34’s are like a buzz saw! While the brittle high mid / high end is gone, these things have a serious spikey 1-2.5k push! In general it’s a huge mid range push. I was running channel 2 on vintage at like 2 o’clock, with these tubes I had to pull it back to 10 o’clock, but they are still steaming at me…. Channel 3 modern, it took some of that md scoop out (which I like) but it’s got a harsh high mid / high… They are far from smooth. Pretty dissapointed…. I don’t recall such a drastic change back in the day when I switched the rev g over…. Best way to describe these jj’s they BITE, they don’t GROWL.
So I check Mesa website last night and they now have el34 str 446 and 447 in stock. I have no idea what I would have had in the mid to late 90s from Mesa…. I sure has heck don’t want to waste $400 on two quads of power tubes to see what MIGHT work better…
Today I woke up and decided to really spend some time with the amp…. I dropped it 50 watts so I could get the volume on both gain channels up to 10 o’clock with out killing what’s left of my ears… the amp seemed to open up a bit now… I also moved from bold to spongy to try and pull the voltage back. Learned the presence control a little better with this multi watt…… the buzz saw seems to be tamed now, that was mainly from going to 50 watt and flipping the voltage over to spongy….. learning the presence better helped with the brittle highs… now channel 3 modern with the mids at 3 o’clock remind me more of the rev g on orange! Channel 2 vintage is just meh… it’s really boxy with the mids at 9 o clock. It does sound like I’ve lost some gain / distortion. I run both channels around 2 o clock.
So, now that I’ve figured out the presence with this thing… should I pop the old 6l6 back in and see what happens? Back in the day I really liked what el34’s did to rev g. Everyone loved my tone…. I was like a Dr had a kid with a Marshall… had that Dr growl but had more of a Marshall note clarity…no fizz…
So these mw dr’s not like el34’s?
What power tube should I be looking into? I’d prefer staying with the high priced mesa tubes, I used them 30 years ago and I am not all that happy with these jj’s even though I think I have them under control a bit… I’d like to get back to bold, running the recto tubes. Spongy fixed the jj issue, does it pull the voltage down voltage in pre to?
love to hear everyone’s thoughts, I’ve just awoke from a 20 year music coma… things have changed a lot…
Even though the amp is only 7 years old and supposedly sat for the past 2, should I pop new 54ugb’s in?
Thanks, hope to hear everyone’s thoughts!
