Favorite 6L6 tubes?

[Anonymous]

Hello,
I recently retubed my 2 channel Triple Rectifier with Ruby 6L6GCs. I hate them. I've found that when pushed, they create this nasty high pitched treble sound that kills any kind of tone I'm able to get. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Also, what are your favorite 6L6 tubes for the Rectifiers?

Thanks!

 

[nathan28]

I have always used the mesa stock offering, then i tried electro harmonix 6l6's and hated them, i went back to the mesa stock offering, then i called bob @ eurotubes and got some jj's and they are my favorite so far. They are rich sounding. Smooth highs, powerfull low end, if the stock mesa's arent gettin your rocks off, give the jj's a try.

 

[Anonymous]

t sounds more like a 12ax7 problem to me. What do you have in V1-V5??

V1, V3 - Mesa 12AX7 (about 10 years old)
V2 - Penta 12AX7
V4 - JJ ECC83S
V5 - balanced JJ ECC83S

I really don't think it's the preamp, though, because at lower volumes the nasty highs aren't there and when I switch to the clean channel and crank that to power tube saturation, they are. I did get them from Doug's, btw.

If you've got any suggestions, I also have some high gain JJ preamp tubes, more Mesa 12AX7s, a Tung-sol re-issue, an EH 12AX7, and a Sovtek 12AX7 LPS.

 

[MesaNoobie]

I have the same power tubes and I don't hate 'em, just don't like 'em.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info! I'll definitely give that some consideration, and hopefully get some good out of it!

If not, I'll try the Seds. If that doesn't fix it, then I'll know it's got to be the preamp or somewhere else.

 

[R_ADKINS80]

TADs kick some serious ass, I also have a set of STR 454 Svetlanas and they are great as well but not as beefy in the low end as the TADs.

 

[Anonymous]

Great, I just picked that up! I'd much rather spend $30 for a great pre and know it's good than over $120 and still have the problem.

The only thing is...the Sovtek LPS I have won't work in spongy mode. It will for a few minutes if I have it in bold then switch to spongy, but afterwards the volume drops a lot. I know this means tube death, but if it works alright in bold, should I not worry about it?

 

[ibanez4life SZ!]

10 year old preamp tubes sounds like a pretty obvious culprit to me. My friend had the same thing going on with his Peavey XXX. At low volumes, it sounded great, but when it turned it up with us for the first time, there was this horrible high end fizz that pierced over everything. Swapped some preamp tubes, and it was gone. His preamp tubes were also atleast 6 years old.

 

[Rocky]

I have 40 year old preamp tubes in amps. As long as they work and arent screechy they are likely fine.

 

[212Mavguy]

Have owned sweaty Svetty's, EH's, and JJ 6l6gc running them in an amp that was user fixed bias and 476 measured plate volts, Mesa territory, and my ears preferred the smoothness of the JJ's doing dirty, not a big fan of the EH, neutral, but thought EH sounded slightly better to my ears following EH 12ax7 type in circuit, interestingly. Svetties were strong and tight on bottom with a sharp edge on top. Given a correct bias for each type from smart buying, I'd do JJ's for lower gain clean, blues/rock tones and to chug through a big mesa 4/12 cabinet, use the sweaty svetties to get boinging the bouncing betties.

 

[Anonymous]

I got the RCA today, and am blown away! I can't believe the improvement over the JJ in V1. Much smoother gain, thicker bass, heavier tone all around and I love it.

Now I'm looking at V4 and V5 since I'm content with 1 - 3. What do you think of the NOS Mullard 12AT7?

Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

Alright, that sounds good. How exactly would it change the sound, if it can be explained.

On another note, I'd like to use the NOS RCA, the Sovtek LPS, and one other tube for the first 3 slots. I feel like I can do better than the EH 12AX7 I have in there now. Do you think putting an RFT in V1, the RCA in V2 and the Sovtek in V3 would sound good? Or would there be another combination of those three that would be better? I know it's all subjective, but what would you personally do?

I'm loving this amp more and more every day. I just can't believe how much better the NOS tubes are.

 

[secretsoundz]

JJ's from Eurotubes. :mrgreen:

 

[Anonymous]

I'm definitely more into metal and hard rock. I'll play lead sometimes, but mostly it's rhythm that I do. I have a few pedals, but lately I've been going directly into the amp with a parametric EQ in the loop as my only effect.

I'm looking for a fat & heavy tone....something where I can turn the gain up without having to deal with fizz or too much mud. I'm not looking for it to be super-tight, though it can't be flabby. I guess, something similar to the tone System gets on Toxicity.

I actually just picked up a NOS Mullard 12AX7, so I'll probably try that out in V2 and see how I like it.

As far as not liking the EH...I've swapped it around a little but I think I need something to compare it to. Once I get the Mullard, I'll have a better idea of what I like / don't like.

How much do V4 and V5 affect tone? Not as much as the first three, correct?

One more thing, I really can't thank you enough for all the information you've got to offer. I was ready to spend another $150 on power tubes and be right back where I started, but now not only have I saved money, I'm realizing how great this amp is. lol just wish the tubes weren't so damn hot every time I want to compare them!

 

[Anonymous]

I finally got all my tubes in, and I'm very happy with the way the Recto sounds now. Here's my setup:

V1: Mullard ECC83
V2: RCA 12AX7A
V3: Tung-Sol 12AX7A Long Plate (NOS)
V4: EH 12AX7
V5: Sovtek LPS

The tone on this thing is incredible! I've got a gig tomorrow night, and I can't wait to show off my setup. Again, thanks for all the advice Shredd!

 

[Anonymous]

The gig was awesome! I really couldn't be happier with my sound, and I'm stunned at how much better the tone is with these old tubes. During sound check, I got the opportunity to walk about 40ft in front of the amp to hear it at a distance, and it's the exact thing I was going for!

Now I've just got to figure out how to capture this tone on a recording...

 

[Adambomb]

I like the stock Mesa 6L6's. Never had much luck with other brand tubes in my DR......oh, but the JJ 6l6's are really good too. I had some JJ 6l6 tubes in my Marshall JCM 900 and it rocked more than any other 6l6 tube I tried.