New to tube amps and Boogie

[kflow]

Hello all! I recently purchased a Road King Combo. It is my first tube amp ever. I have a few questions so please bare with the new guy. I believe the amp sat for a while on the showroom floor before I purchased it. Looking at the serial number on it I believe it is a 2004 or earlier model. This is based on another post I read were a guy with a higher serial number than mine said his amp was a 2004. These brings me to the tubes.

How do I know when to replace them? I found the set up that John Petrucci uses and have tweaked that a bit. The amp sounds great, however, I want some more chugg and tightness. I play alot of triplets and such and they are muddy. Do you think I should replace the tubes based on the age of the amp or go with an overdrive pedal or maybe even a compessor/sustainer? I play metal and you can see my rig below. I need some help to get that punch I am looking for.

 

[Living_justice]

sell it and get a mark 4.

 

[sombra]

could be a thousand of things but first I really don't like your speakers.
Maybe the muddyness comes from the values you putted .
take out some bass.It could be help.
luck

 

[JoeVFR]

Hello all! I recently purchased a Road King Combo. It is my first tube amp ever. I have a few questions so please bare with the new guy. I believe the amp sat for a while on the showroom floor before I purchased it. Looking at the serial number on it I believe it is a 2004 or earlier model. This is based on another post I read were a guy with a higher serial number than mine said his amp was a 2004. These brings me to the tubes.

How do I know when to replace them? I found the set up that John Petrucci uses and have tweaked that a bit. The amp sounds great, however, I want some more chugg and tightness. I play alot of triplets and such and they are muddy. Do you think I should replace the tubes based on the age of the amp or go with an overdrive pedal or maybe even a compessor/sustainer? I play metal and you can see my rig below. I need some help to get that punch I am looking for.

I wouldn't be in a hurry to change tubes. If you recently got it, there is still a lot of experimenting to be done to find the sound your after. The Road King has a lot more options than my Lonestar and I am still finding new sounds two years later. I say give it some time.
As far as changing the tubes, I have gigged 2-3 times monthly for two years with no problems with the Lonestar at moderate volume. I changed the tubes as a precaution, but they still sounded fine. I did not notice any difference with the new tubes (kept older ones for spares)

 

[kflow]

could be a thousand of things but first I really don't like your speakers.
Maybe the muddyness comes from the values you putted .
take out some bass.It could be help.
luck

Well I started only using my combo speakers and the sound did tighten up a bit. My 4x12 seemed to be alot more muddy than the combo (I failed to mention that the speakers are over 15 years old). Should I just trash the 4x12 I have or just replace the speakers? As far as getting more punch and chugg to my distortion I have read in other posts about the maxon od808. Bands like shadows fall and killswitch are using that. What do ya think?