DC5 with EL34's

[Lee Bob]

Is it remotely possible to run EL34's in the DC5? In the past I have always run EL34's in my Boogie's (Mark IV, T-verb, RoV and obviously the Stiletto) and much preferred it over stock 6L6's. Now all of those amps were either designed for EL34's or had switches to switch back and forth between either type of tube. As far as I can tell the DC5's don't come with a switch, so has anyone biased their DC5 to accept EL34's? If so, how does it sound?

 

[LithiumZero]

I think that the output transformers would have to be swapped to handle EL-34's. A while back I used the slave out of my DC-10 head into the Power section of a Marshall JCM900 and it sounded killer!

 

[timjtitus]

i did it to mine but undid cuz it was too risky without swapping the output transformer. it was an improvment though. my fav sound with it was slaved into my peavey brvo el34 power section. much much tighter. but i never really liked my dc-5 and i was expecting a miracle by changing to el34s. silly me

 

[AdmiralB]

Output transformer will be fine. It's the power transformer that would be the problem, EL34s require a lot more heater current relative to 6L6s.

 

[timjtitus]

yeah, thats what i meant. after all it's not worth it imo

 

[Monsta-Tone]

It would be relatively easy for a good tech to do.

You will need to disconnect the Filament or "Heater" wiring from your power tubes.

Then, you will have to add an additional 6.3V transformer just for the Power Tubes.

This will make it so that you can use EL34 or 6L6.


We do this mod in our shop. It costs about $140 or so. I've been thinking about doing it to my DC-5. I have a DC-10 so I might experiment with the DC-5 a bit.