Mark III pre amp tube choice?

[steve thomas]

So I've just got a purple stripe MK3 combo and the previous owner stated that the pre amp tubes were likely to be originals. It sounds great, but could do with a bit more (gain seems a bt flat, if this makes sense). Any suggestions on the make type of pre amp tube

Thanks

 

[Facelift]

maybe try the high gain JJ set that Eurotubes has for the mark III.

 

[jjblacksheep]

I like a Tung Sol in my purple stripe in V1.

 

[CoG]

I did a bunch of tube rolling and found out it wasn't worth the trouble (compared to a recto, where it definitely is.) Basically any sound I could get with a given tube combination I could get with different tubes just by tweaking knobs, and messing around with tubes that have different amounts of gain available can make balancing volumes between channels even harder than it is already. Any decent new production tube will do.

 

[boogiemon]

+1 on the tung sol's. I've got a couple of them in my MIII & they sound great.

I like a Tung Sol in my purple stripe in V1.

 

[James B]

I'm with CoG. Don't buy anything just yet.

If the amp is new to you, spend a couple of weeks or even 2 months playing through it and learning the sensitivity of Volume 1, Treble, Lead Drive and Lead Master. The Presence control on the back of the amp is an absolute gem and probably one of the most underrated tools of the Mark III. All of these controls interface with one another and it takes some time to realize how suttle adjustments can change your sound in a big way. I was shocked at how much my tone improved after working with this amp over a 3 week period. I replaced my preamp tubes after literally years of use. To be perfectly honest, I don't know why I did. They sounded fine and the new tubes made no difference whatsoever.