EL84 Tubes

[mloiaco]

Out of curiosity, what is the characteristic tone of an EL-84 tube?

For example, 6L6 tubes could arguably be characterized by a smooth, harmonically lush, and thick bottom end.

As another example, one could characterize an EL34 as chimey, urgent, and having a brash top end.

How would you characterize the voice of an EL84 (either in terms of a clean sound or in terms of a distorted sound). Try to keep your answers general so that you describe the voice of the tube itself and not the voice of an amplifier that uses that tube.

 

[jbird]

Hmm, Chimey? Voxey? Bratty?

 

[Boogiebabies]

Fat, thick, warm, round and easy to overdrive. Class A type tone.

 

[redmax61]

I'm running a combination of EL-34's and EL-84's in my Dual Recto. Before I settled into this setup, I tried both by themselves. To my ear, the 84's seemed to be a lot more brash souding. The 34's sounded rounder with a lot more upper midrange. Oddly enough, the 34's didn't seem to have a lot of top end. However, the combination of the two is unbelievable.

 

[dylan7620]

very "sweet" sounding. boogiebabies is right.. probably the most class A like breakup. (in an A/B amp) i can really play at lower volumes without my tone going completly kaput.

 

[mosh potatoes]

i dont really know the mechanics of how tube circuitry works, so this may be a stupidass question, but: redmax said he's running the 84 and 34 together in his dual rec...could i do the same thing with my single rec (one 84 and one 34)?

 

[redmax61]

The simple answer is no.

It would probably produce some ugly results if you did that. Sound wise, I'd think there would be some ugly crossover distortion due to the different gain structure of the tubes. Electronically, you would probably toast something.

I'm actually running a pair of THD YellowJackets in my amp. They are socket adapters that convert the 84's to class "A" operation and adust bias automatically. No other changes are necessary. Used as a pair, they work just like any other matched set of tubes, except that you can combine them with matched set of another model of tube.

There is only one amp that I know of that would allow you to mix tubes in the manner you suggest. It's also made by THD. It's called the Flexi-50. You can mix and match tubes in any order you wish.

www.thdelectronics.com

 

[Monsta-Tone]

The THD BiValve can handle any combination of tubes.

 

[redmax61]

You are absolutely right. I forgot about that one. Thanks!

 

[Monsta-Tone]

I have a '93 DC-2 without EQ, but with the "Contour." It uses 2 EL-84's. I stayed away from these amps for a long time because I thought that I could only get British sounds out of them, I was wrong.

I can get almost any tone that I want out of the amp. The Cleans are fat and phenomenal. The only amp that gets better cleans (other than Vintage Fenders) that I have owned is my Mark IV and Soldano Lucky 13.

The Reverb on the Mark IV or the Lucky 13 are not as nice as the DC.


As for the Leads, I can certainly make the amp sound "bright & chimey," but it all depends on the settings of the amp. I can also dial in some serious Santana tones at bedroom volume, and just about any Metal tones I want with the Contour turned on.





The 6L6's will sound very deep & resonant, with lots of headroom and very little distortion until you turn the amp up. The EL-84 will give you much less headroom, less bass, more mids & highs, and serious distortion.

FWIW: The JJ EL-84 is one of the only EL-84 tubes that I have tried that I like. The Mesa's, and Groove Tubes seem to rattle too much and sounded sterile to me.

 

[Timbre Wolf]

Out of curiosity, what is the characteristic tone of an EL-84 tube?

Try to keep your answers general so that you describe the voice of the tube itself and not the voice of an amplifier that uses that tube.

Hmmm...

They sound fantastic!

That's about as general as I can get. I've tried about a dozen NOS types in several different amps that have different circuit designs (single-ended, fixed-bias class AB, cathode-bias class AB [that's called "class A"]), and believe it or not, the same EL84 can sound vastly different in each amp! And if you adjust the bias on an EL84 amp, you can get it to sound very different again. There are certain characteristics that emerge for the individual tubes after trying several circuits, but I don't believe there's really an EL84 "sound."

I sympathize with your attempt to make sense of the EL84 amp world, but I'd recommend a different approach: discover what you want out of an amp, and ask around for recommendations for an amp that fits your description. You may be surprised at what kind of power tube you end up with!

- T

 

[brianf]

Think VOX. Early Beatles. Go to a local shop and try the LSS.

brianf

 

[mloiaco]

Ah yes. I tried a Lone Star about a year ago, and I've never played an amp that has such strong character as the lone star. As soon as I plugged in, I thought "Texas." The cleans were the best that I've ever heard.

By the way, I'm perfectly happy with my Road King; I'm just legitimately curious about how people describe the sound of an EL84 tube. By the way, there have been some great responses so far...thanks!

 

[axwielding1]

I find the EL84 to have a great clean tone... They can be pushed inti a greasy clean. I say "grease" which means, if you were looking at a graphic EQ, it would resemble a frown.
Then, if pushed further, it can get an EL34-ish breakup, but does not get as warm or smooth.
These thoughts are based on my old Gibson class A amp from 60's, which I push with a TS9/808. With the clean boost I get grease, with some drive I get Marshally tones.
Very nice tubes...
ax. :twisted:

 

[mesa115]

Think Stone Temple Pilots. All those tones are modified Vox's all use EL 84's. You can get beautiful cleans or JCM 800 like crunch or Boogie gain and sustain.

They don't have as much low end bottom crunch, but with an EV speaker, NO CELESTIANS, they get pretty close.

The Mesa's using EL 84's are Matchless clones for 1/3 of the money plus they can sound like a Mesa as a bonus.