Memberzonly, are you out there?

[Bill Warner]

Hi memberzonly. Based on your suggestions and those of others I have some new tubes on the way to try out. I've ordered some various tubes from both eurotubes and dougs tubes to try out. from euro tubes I ordered..

JJ ECC83S's
JJ E34L's
JJ GZ34
(his basic rectifier re-tube package)

From Dougs Tubes I ordered...
Shuguang 12AX7C
GT-12AX7-C (also shuguang)
Ruby EL34BSTR (matched quad)

Anyway, I was wondering, when you swapped your pre tubes which position did you swap (V1-V5). I noticed in the Stiletto manual that different locations are for various modes (fat clean, fluid drive, etc.). From what I understand the V1 location is usually what people swap.

Please let me know what you did and if you have any suggestions for experimenting.

Thanks!
Bill

 

[dylan7620]

when changing preamp tubes i usually do all of them at once. if you know what you're looking for. as in, you know the bite will go down if you change only v1 then sometimes thats all you need to change. its just different sounds. i'd personally start over just by load all the JJs in for starters and go from there. mix and match to achive whatever sound, just keep track of what you're putting where.

 

[memberzonly]

Hey Bill,

Based on the tube chart, the Fluid Drive gainstages are spread (cascaded)across several tubes. Since the first stage of fluid drive occurs on V2A, this is the most important stage of the fluid drive "channel". Each subsequent stage builds on the previous stage. As you add more gain, you'll get more compression and sometimes a looser bottom end. You may want to avoid the RFT's in this case. The chinese 12AX7's (c9) may do the trick. Be careful with the GT 12AX7 "Mullard" copies. They can go microphonic very quickly in this application.

Ideally, you'd do great with something like a Mullard or Brimar in V1 and V2 since they set the stage for all the gain structure in the amp.

-j-

 

[Bill Warner]

Hey guys and thanks for the tips.

I received the JJ tubes yesteday and tried them out. First I tried the just the pre's (all 5 ECC83s) and they seemed to take a little of the edge/bite off that I was looking to reduce. They seem to warm up the sound a bit (not as bright as the stock tubes) I also tried the JJ E34L's and I really kind of liked them a little better than the stock tubes so I'm leaving them in for now. I went back to the pre's and put the stock ones back in and the bite/brightness was back. I then put the JJ's back in at V1 and V2 and it tamed it back again. I need to go back and try again with all 5 JJ pre's in. The bass response did seem to get a little looser but over all it was still very tight (a lot tighter than I'm used to with my Solid State/Modeling rig).

I also played a little with the JJ GZ34 tubes. I typically prefer the silicon diode mode with the bold and fluid drive settings but these tubes did seem to take a little of the sag out of the rectifier/spungy mode. I still tend to prefer the diode mode so in the end I put the 2 stock tubes back in.

I'll probably go back this weekend and do another round of exprimenting with the JJ's. After about an hour my ears tend to get tired and lose their focus.

I'll let you know how the other tubes work out once they come in hopefully today or tomorrow. Our band is playing this weekend but it looks like I'll be giging with my trusty AX2 until I get a better handle on this Stiletto.

By the way, are you using any distortion or overdrive effects between your guitar and amp to get other tone variations? I'm trying to get a basic tone I like first (without effects) but for some of the stuff we cover I'm going to need a little more grit. I've got a GT-8 but haven't used it with the Stiletto (yet).

Thanks again guys and have a great weekend!
Bill