JJ6l6s vs. Mesa6l6s

[bsideexperiment]

Lately, i've been seeing a lot of people pimping JJs.
tone is subjective, but what does jj6l6s bring to the table that mesa 6l6s don't...and vice versa. How much of a difference is there?

 

[Guitarzan]

JJ's by far.

 

[jackieTHEjokeman]

Don't buy the hype. JJ's are real good, but there's a reason why Mesa doesn't stock them in their amps. Don't ask me what though...I think I read it here not too long ago as to why.

 

[Guitarzan]

Don't buy the hype. JJ's are real good, but there's a reason why Mesa doesn't stock them in their amps. Don't ask me what though...I think I read it here not too long ago as to why.

Don't hassle them if you haven't tried them.

 

[MesaDCLP]

The reason Mesa doesn't stock JJ's is in Guitarzan's sticky in "Tubes". Very good reading. What about the original question though, what do they do better for one's tone? I have not tried them, but the curiosity is there due to many people chosing them over a flood of other products.

 

[user 1198]

I'm running stock Mesa tubes in my Lone Star and I couldn't be happier with my tone. Nobody can touch their 6 month tube warranty either.

I have the JJ 6L6's in my Fender HRD amp and they sound good, but I wouldn't say that they sounds leaps and bounds better than the stock tubes that came with the amp. JJ tubes seem to me to be farily dark sounding, so they might be a good choice if you have an amp that is too bright sounding.

 

[Sanchez]

I put them in my Fender Prosonic purley because of the cost. It was cheaper for me to have 4 12Ax7's, 2 6L6's and 1 Rect tub sent to me in Australia then to buy any other brand here over the counter.

Trust those people that say that they are a terrific tub and at the best price to boot.

It turned my Prosonic from a flame thrower to a nuclear warhead. But cleaned it up at the same time.

I have 2 high gain JJ's in my Triaxis that were in there along side some Mesa tubes that were in there since I bought it so can't tell you what it would sound like with Mesa's only.

In Aust 1 Mesa 6L6 is $49aus. If I had to change all 8 in my 2:90 I'd be looking at $392aus. 12Ax7's are $39aus each. So you do the maths and see that it costs the earth.

Sanchez

 

[jamme61]

The jj's sounded better in my lonestar, but the stk tubes sounded good. And part of the difference might have been that the jj's ran hotter then the stk tubes. the stk mesa's were running at 19 to 20 ma and the jj's were at 30-31 ma. i know you can't bias mesa's but you can still measure the tubes with a bias rite. 19 to 20 ma is very close to cross over distortion(real bad sound) I had bob at eurotubes send me a hotter set of JJ's. He knows what to send you, for your Mesa. The JJ's are real cheap and worth trying out IMHO.

 

[3SpeedChicken]

Lately, i've been seeing a lot of people pimping JJs.
tone is subjective, but what does jj6l6s bring to the table that mesa 6l6s don't...and vice versa. How much of a difference is there?

I cannot tell you how the JJ 6L6's differ from Mesa 6L6's....as I have JJ 6V6's....which run in EL34 bias mode.

What I 'can' tell you is how this differs from the stock 6L6 Mesa tubes that came in my Roadster.

First....there was nothing wrong with what I got out of the stock 6L6's. It was the Dual Recto 'hit-you-in-the-face' tone that I expected...and happily paid for.

But.....I really liked the Road King I tried out in EL34 mode. The 'Brit' tone has always held my heart, but the Stillettos just didn't deliver enough gain. The RK produced that tone...AND had the gain of a Dual Rec.

So I grabbed a Roadster and called Bob. What he prescribed is giving me that RK EL34 high gain tone that I fell in love with....but with smoother cleans. MUCH smoother cleans.

As for JJ's being 'dark'....hogwash. They smooth out the upper mids and highs. My clean channels now really chime. With the 6L6's, everything was a tad mid-scooped....esp. the cleans. Who wants scooped cleans?

 

[picnic]

I replaced my Lonestar's stock 6L6 tubes with Ruby's I bought from Doug's Tubes. Doug said the Mesa stock tube is a Ruby 430. There was some problems with them and Mesa upgraded to Ruby 440's as their stock tube now.

I had no problems with my stock Mesa's but a thread like this gave me some GAS, so I bought the new Ruby's. The tone is a little more alive and I get more harmonic feedback on the drive channel. The clean channel is more sparkly and chimey. I think it was worth the swap.

 

[TheRazMeister]

Hype..... 8)

One of the problems with your question is like asking "Fender or Gibson" There is no right answer but tons of opinions. My Mantra is that Mesa uses a particular tube for a reason, and from what I read, it's a combination of performance and reliability.

Lately, i've been seeing a lot of people pimping JJs.
tone is subjective, but what does jj6l6s bring to the table that mesa 6l6s don't...and vice versa. How much of a difference is there?

 

[jamme61]

Mesa is running their tubes so cold that they're not even breaking a sweat. At least in my LS, the 6L6"s were running at 19 to 20 ma at 440 plate volts, that's really cold, and border line cross over distortion, which will kill your tone. I don't want to get into the whole bias debate, I just think regardless of what tubes you put in your Mesa, they have to be running hot enough to sound good. I think Mesa is forced to make this compromise because of the no bias pot (that's ok). The good part is a guy like Bob at eurotubes or Lord Valve ect, Know this, and can send you a hotter set of tubes, which will sound better then the stk tubes, because of the hotter bias. We spend a ton on mesa to get the ultimate tone. then we buy the best pedals (don't forget true by pass) and the greatest cables, speakers, guitars, p/u's ect The problem is, if your tubes are running to cold (cross over distortin are) then everything else dosen't mean anything.
Just my opinion on this stuff

 

[Platypus]

As TheRazMeister said, there's no right or wrong answer, just lots of opinions... so here is mine: the JJ tube for the price/sound walks all over the Mesa 6L6.

Like we keep saying, things tend to get overhyped, especially in the honeymoon period and especially relating to guitar gear. Tone is so ridiculously subjective that it's not really worth trying to base your opinon on something someone writes.

That being said, economically the JJ's have the Mesa tubes beat and from a tone standpoint, they offer a different sound, especially since Mesa's bias is so cold, replacing it with ANY tube that runs hotter will give you a different sound.. whether or not that is better for you is totally up to you.

Have fun, experiment around, we're all on the same tone quest! It is what it is.

 

[picnic]

I was happy with the stock Mesa's in my LS, then GAS struck.

Now I'm happy with the new Ruby's and GAS is building.

JJ's in the near future seem unavoidable.

Threads like this are why I like to hang here.

 

[Bikedude]

I re-tube with a complete set of JJ's, and I couldn't be happier with the tone. Amp is warmer sounding to me, and the Ch 2 sounds a lot better to me. BTW, when I took out one of the Mesa 6l6's, the center post of the tube was cracked and just fell out, and the amp was only a year and a half old, gigged 4-6 times a month. After the re-tube i found the amp much easier to dial in with amazing tones. IMHO only disclaimer..

 

[Dreads]

I am not a big fan of the mesa tubes. I said to hell with my warranty and got rid of the lousy stankin mesa tubes in the first week I got my amp! Mesa tubes suck.

 

[Platypus]

I am not a big fan of the mesa tubes. I said to hell with my warranty and got rid of the lousy stankin mesa tubes in the first week I got my amp! Mesa tubes suck.

I wouldn't go as far as to say they suck.. they have the bes warranty in the business on them. They just aren't what you're into.

 

[jbird]

I think the Mesa tubes look better! :?

 

[Dreads]

I am not a big fan of the mesa tubes. I said to hell with my warranty and got rid of the lousy stankin mesa tubes in the first week I got my amp! Mesa tubes suck.

I wouldn't go as far as to say they suck.. they have the bes warranty in the business on them. They just aren't what you're into.

well, I don't know.. I think they're lousy. I would get squeeling, farting noises from them.. also like a deep rumbling growl would bloom out of nowhere. These tubes probably need the best warranty in the business because they have so many problems.

They probably buy en mass and then don't do all of the fancy screening they talk about (or people would not have these probs.) It's worth it for them to keep sending you more tubes rather than thoroughly test. If you mean I'm not into microphonics in my amp due to bad tubes, um.. yeah.. I guess you're right. heh.

 

[Platypus]

I am not a big fan of the mesa tubes. I said to hell with my warranty and got rid of the lousy stankin mesa tubes in the first week I got my amp! Mesa tubes suck.

I wouldn't go as far as to say they suck.. they have the bes warranty in the business on them. They just aren't what you're into.

well, I don't know.. I think they're lousy. I would get squeeling, farting noises from them.. also like a deep rumbling growl would bloom out of nowhere. These tubes probably need the best warranty in the business because they have so many problems.

They probably buy en mass and then don't do all of the fancy screening they talk about (or people would not have these probs.) It's worth it for them to keep sending you more tubes rather than thoroughly test. If you mean I'm not into microphonics in my amp due to bad tubes, um.. yeah.. I guess you're right. heh.

That's a rather outlandish claim that an entire line of products is going to perform exactly like the OBVIOUSLY faulty tubes that you received. Furthermore they're just rebranded tubes in the first place.

I've used pretty much everything in the biz, and while Mesa's aren't my favorite they're far from the worst tube out there.

Either way, everyone's entitled to their own opinons.