Maverick De-Fizzed

[GD_NC]

So I've had my Maverick about 5 months now and I've never really cared for the lead channel - just too fizzy. [FWIW - Channel 1 is so good you could you can toss the footswitch and never care it had another channel] So today my wife is out of town with the kids so I'm blowing the dust of off my speakers with a "little" extra volume. In the process V2 (JJ EC83S) get's microphonic and starts feeding back. I go grab a new Electro Harmonix 12AX7 out of the closet, start the Mav back up again, and... WOW the lead channel is now smooth as butter! The fizz is gone!

If I had know it was that easy I would have put that tube in a lot sooner.

 

[MBMusicMan]

You thought that was good, try a premium brand like JJ or Mesa. I tend to associate EH tubes with fizziness, JJ with rich overtones and MEsa with that characteristic sag.

 

[94Tremoverb]

The Maverick's lead channel is *extremely* tube-sensitive, especially to V2. It's the only amp I know of where the overdrive channel actually uses less tube stages than the clean (to be fair, the clean channel uses one of its stages as a cathode-follower, only in Fat mode, so in Bright mode both channels have the same number and technically the cathode follower is not a *gain* stage anyway), so each stage in the lead channel is run really up to the limit of the tube gain, which is why it brings out their characteristics so much. The clean channel is run more conservative, and much less fussy with tubes.

When I had mine I really liked a NOS GE 12AY7 in V2, it did reduce the gain but it greatly improved the tone... and I never used the amp for higher gain anyway.

 

[vitor gracie]

I also noticed with the two that I owned (combo & head) that they do not like being played at lower volumes in channel 2. Channel one ALWAYS sounded good no matter what, but 2 REALLY was lousy unless turned up a lot. I got rid of mine and played it again at the Guitar Center I sold it to and was amazed at how awesome it sounded played very loud. I was also going through a Bogner 2X12 and that helped a little. Needless to say, I wanted it back. LOL!