New Tubes in Roadster

[boojo35]

Hi,

New member to the board and first time poster.

I spent a lot of time on here researching tubes for Roadsters, and what people have done for the overall dark tone. I have to say thanks to all that have posted the combinations of pre-amp tubes that they have found to help open up the sound on these amps.

I think some of my sound may have deteriorated over time but I have never liked the sound of this amp through the neck pick-ups or the neck/bridge combined on either one of my Les Pauls. It is way to dark and muddy yet when I plug either of those into other amps I find them to be very usable pick-ups. I also have noticed that the hum in the amp has worsened and it has had a buzz/rattle to it for quite some time. I have completely disassembled it, tightened speakers, added felt insulation behind the grill cloth cover, taken the chassis out (it is a combo amp), made sure all things were tight and reassembled. This helped somewhat but I still have the buzz/rattle at certain frequencies and don't really have to turn the amp up loud to hear it. As it turns out, this was tube rattle.

What I installed is a tung sol 12ax7 in V1. JJ's for V2 and V5 although I heard a crunching when putting the guard back over V2, pulled the cover back off and the little tip on the end of the glass broke off leaving a hole in the tube so I put one of the Mesa russian-2's back in there. I put Pentas in v3 and v4 and a sovtek in V6. For power tubes I went with Tung Sol el34 B's, early distortion.

I did not have a lot of time to play with it yet but did go through all the channels and play. I can use the neck pick-up now in some channels or use the neck/bridge combo in most channels now with great sound. The Brit channel came to life big time, so did vintage. Raw is now usable. The overall sound is much more defined. The muddy mushy bass is gone and what really is killer is that the notes are now very defined with good amounts of distortion. The power tubes break up nice at more usable volumes and I know that it will cut through a mix better because it did not used to even cut through itself. I am absolutely geeked at how much this amp came to life, how much clarity and punch it now has and how the bass notes are no longer muddy. It will melt your face off.

This is a great forum, I got some good info from here that put me into the right direction. I was considering changing out the speakers, I no longer think that will be necessary.

 

[Daxman73]

Welcome to the forum, glad to have you on board! Thanks for telling us about your story, very interesting. I own a Roadster combo as well, but I've never had the issues that a lot of people on here have/had with them. I'm a tweaker and while it wasnt real bad, it took me a while to dial in a sound I liked. As we all know, tone is subjective. It's an incredible amp.

 

[Dilemma]

I have never liked the sound of this amp through the neck pick-ups or the neck/bridge combined on either one of my Les Pauls.

I struggled with this a little myself. The amp will give you all the
tones you need, but you're gonna have to fiddle with it a bit.

Try running a Phase 90 out front on minimum sweep. See what
you think of that.

 

[boojo35]

Welcome to the forum, glad to have you on board! Thanks for telling us about your story, very interesting. I own a Roadster combo as well, but I've never had the issues that a lot of people on here have/had with them. I'm a tweaker and while it wasnt real bad, it took me a while to dial in a sound I liked. As we all know, tone is subjective. It's an incredible amp.

Yes, I agree. They are an amazing amp, that is why I bought it. It has always been on the dark side but it really got muddy. I assume that the sound gradually deteriorated over time making it not so noticeable. It has never sounded like this though, not even close. You can start with all knobs at 12 o'clock now and have a decent sound, it does not take much tweeking to make it awesome. Before there was no amount of tweeking to make it right in certain channels. Especially when using the neck pick up.

People have described the sound as having a blanket over it. I had a pile of blankets, and a few sofa cushions over it too!! LOL.

I may throw the 6L6's back in it too see if the preamp tubes are the big difference or if the EL-34's are responsible for the big change. Maybe a combination of both. I realize that it may not be a "fair" comparison if my 6L6's are that tired though.

All in all though, it is now amazing. It has awesome tone at low volumes and that point when you turn it up and it really gets magical happens earlier than it did before. It likes my pedals better and is scary wicked with the TS-808. I could probably roast marshmallows in front of the speakers.

One slight downside, I was in total love with the tweed channel when driven hard before, I am still tweeking to get back to that spot.

 

[knotts]

Thanks for posting your results. I have a roadster head and I'm a big fan after I changed the V1 out with a tungsol. I put EL34's in my lonestar and liked it better. Currently I'm running 6L6's in my roadster but your post has me thinking it may be worth switching those out. Maybe I'll give it a go.