Rectifire Tubes. 5U4G. Erm. What are they?

[dogboy131]

Noob alert.

I am looking at the manual for the triple recto and I noticed it has 2 5U4G tubes.

What is the main funtion for these tubes? I usually like to function in a lower wattage mode. Do these remain on for all modes etc? Or are they only activated when run at full vol mode?

Silicone Diode mode? WHat is that? Is that full power? Spongy or Bold...

Some help understanding what kicks in certain tubes in the power sections would be great.

 

[fatboy135]

hi dude, i see on your other post that you´re so newbee on tubes, well first of all don´t try to change the tubes for yourself, take a time to undestand all you need about the tubes.
Well your questions are very very generical and trying to answer them could get us into a book called " the mighty rectified AC"
so first of all i recomend to you to use the search on the forum, then try to get all the info you can on the web and the last instance back to that topic with concrete questions because explaining how to rectified a waveform implies to develop some theory that we don´t know if you undestand it, for that reason i think that your first goal is to research for info on forums and the web and then you could for example open a topic like " silicon diodes vs rectifier tubes " that is a good thread and not so long as write a book, if we don´t know how much do you know or if you didn´t have any specific question maybe all the answers will be loose.
of course if you only want an answer and you don´t want to know anything else, we could try to explain it the best as we can, but it will be a pity, there are a lot of people on the forum to maintain very interesting threads about electronics, for that reason I recomend to you read some articles on the web

 

[dogboy131]

hi dude, i see on your other post that you´re so newbee on tubes, well first of all don´t try to change the tubes for yourself, take a time to undestand all you need about the tubes.
Well your questions are very very generical and trying to answer them could get us into a book called " the mighty rectified AC"
so first of all i recomend to you to use the search on the forum, then try to get all the info you can on the web and the last instance back to that topic with concrete questions because explaining how to rectified a waveform implies to develop some theory that we don´t know if you undestand it, for that reason i think that your first goal is to research for info on forums and the web and then you could for example open a topic like " silicon diodes vs rectifier tubes " that is a good thread and not so long as write a book, if we don´t know how much do you know or if you didn´t have any specific question maybe all the answers will be loose.
of course if you only want an answer and you don´t want to know anything else, we could try to explain it the best as we can, but it will be a pity, there are a lot of people on the forum to maintain very interesting threads about electronics, for that reason I recomend to you read some articles on the web

I had a Mesa MK III before. When I flipped the simulclass switch, the 2 outer power tubes (El34's) were the only ones used. When flipped to full power all 4 power (the inner 6l6 and the el34's) tubes would be working.

I was just wondering what the recto tubes did in that respect. My question was worded badly as I am sneaking on during work hours.

 

[fatboy135]

no problem man your post give me an idea about opening a topic with general faq about electronics and most useful links, what did you think about it, will you be interest on that??'

 

[fatboy135]

even mark amps are not my strong points, there was other people on the forum that could help you better with marks.
my special knowledge becomes on the triaxis, i have a lot of questions and answer with one only machine to open my into new amps to study

 

[fatboy135]

I usually like to function in a lower wattage mode. Do these remain on for all modes etc? Or are they only activated when run at full vol mode?

ok in a general electronics answer i say to you that rectifiers tube rectified the sinusoidal waveform you have on home into the DC voltage used inside the amp
as you don´t have only power amp tubes, because you have for example preamp tubes that also need DC voltage the rectifier tubes are useful since you switch on the amp because them feeds power to all the components needed.
well now i´m not also rectified amps specialist, and I don´t know if you could quit one of the rectifier tubes if you quit other power tubes, i imagine if you do a down shifting into 50 watts it is possible that you could take out one of that tubes, but you need to see schematics and then evaluate it.

hope to be a bit helpful

Anyway I usually don´t recomend to quit power amp tubes, there are another ways to reduce wattage, and I also don´t recomend to mix el34 with 6l6 in the same setup even it is possible to do that, it doesn´t means that it is the best choice

 

[dogboy131]

no problem man your post give me an idea about opening a topic with general faq about electronics and most useful links, what did you think about it, will you be interest on that??'

Thanks for the help...

I would be interested in that kind of info. Understanding every link in the chain would be a winner.

 

[Platypus]

Noob alert.

I am looking at the manual for the triple recto and I noticed it has 2 5U4G tubes.

What is the main funtion for these tubes? I usually like to function in a lower wattage mode. Do these remain on for all modes etc? Or are they only activated when run at full vol mode?

Silicone Diode mode? WHat is that? Is that full power? Spongy or Bold...

Some help understanding what kicks in certain tubes in the power sections would be great.

No worries, welcome to the BB!

As fatboy said, a rectifier simply converts AC power from your wall into DC power for your amplifier. This can be solid state (the diode) or analog (the tubes), the function is the same. They both do the same thing but the tube is inefficient (this is good for most however because it takes longer for full voltage to be acheived and therefore you get a nice 'sag' in your sound) The diode is almost instant so you have a much much tighter sound.. the downside is you don't get the sweet tube tone.

Spongy/Bold is a power variac.. basically on spongy it reduces the internal voltages and power of the amp giving way to a vintage distortion and breakup earlier.

The only time any tube is out of play in your amp at all is when you're in the diode mode for your rectifier, and your rectifier tubes are not used. However.. they are STILL in the circuit on some level even though they're not being used (I found this out when I had bad rectifier tubes causing fuses to blow even when I was in diode mode).

Hope this helps!

 

[dogboy131]

Great info.

Thanks.