Do you like the stock Mesa EL34s?

[xscottx9]

I feel the stock EL34's that came with my RK II were pretty dull. I have thrown Ruby's, Mullards, and JJ's in it, and all 3 of those tubes provided the Roadking with a much more useable high gain tone, and twice the volume ..

it was night and day more so than any other tube swap in any amp I have owned. I read that the El34's that shipped with the RK were designed to sound like "old school" El34's .. and I bought the RK II over the Roadster for the ability to have EL34's pushing the British channel. I found the British channel on my RK pretty blah .. Gig volumes its even worse, .. sounds nothing like a Marshall .. its muddy, flabby .. big didapointment. .

Now the Cleans and High Gain on the RK are awesome.

 

[jab]

This came to me from a respected Tube/Amp Guru. If it voids a warranty though, you'd have to wonder if it's worth messing with the stock tubes.

There are a few reasons for the sharp character of the amp that can be addressed to improve things a bit.

1. The front end .... use 12AX7R2 tubes in V1 and V2 to smooth things out a bit.

2. The amps are VERY overbiased and run cold which makes them very grainy. If you use Mesa tubes use ONLY BLUE or WHITE color codes. WHITE is better than blue. I prefer going to the E34LS in a #6 rating in these amps that will bias closer to proper bias with the Mesa fixed bias.

 

[123thefirst]

I feel the stock EL34's that came with my RK II were pretty dull. I have thrown Ruby's, Mullards, and JJ's in it, and all 3 of those tubes provided the Roadking with a much more useable high gain tone, and twice the volume ..

But you're not comparing tube types there. You're comparing idle and full output currents. The pair of Mesa EL34's I have easily compete with Mullard x2f's in tone and feeling though of course Mullard's do win, but not by much.

.. and I bought the RK II over the Roadster for the ability to have EL34's pushing the British channel. I found the British channel on my RK pretty blah .. Gig volumes its even worse, .. sounds nothing like a Marshall .. its muddy, flabby .. big didapointment.

That's surprising. The Brit channel is anything but muddy and flabby with any of the preamp or power tubes I've tried. Your power tubes must have been duds.