Roadster, EL34, 6v6 question

[fretmeister]

I saw some of you roadster owners have tried the el34, 6v6..

I've been using some 6v6 for about a month now, and just started noticing a buzz that I'm pretty sure wasn't there for the past month. There is also a very loud pop when I put the amp in standby.

I'm just trying to verify my sanity here, thinking maybe both the issues were there all along but I never took notice. With 6l6 no buzz or pop.

Have any of you noticed a buzz, pop that isn't there with 6l6's but with el34's or 6v6's?

TIA

 

[Storm]

I thought you'd have to have an adjustable bias mod to make the amp work correctly with the 6v6 tubes as the fixed bias is for el34 and 6l6 tubes.

Ciao ...

 

[ibanez4life SZ!]

Not if the vendor (I assume Bob at eurotubes) sent you a tube that pulls the correct voltage.

 

[oyster]

I think I know exactly what you mean by the buzz. It was there with my single recto as well, I think it is a part of the amp sound not a defect.

My (partial) solution?

I replaced the V3 preamp tube (12ax7) with a 12AT7 (lower gain), this reduced the gain on the amp somewhat (fine with me as I don't use as much gain as this monster can dish up anyway), but also reduced the buzz that I think you are talking about. You could even replace V2 with a 12AT7 as well but when I did that it sucked a lot more gain out of the amp so I stuck with just V3 position.

I also use EL34s rather than 6L6s most of the time and I think this has evened out the high end & harmonics so maybe it hasn't eliminated the buzz but made it blend in better with the upper end frequencies.

Changing tubes is so easy, I am constantly mixing and matching to see what I like best...

Hope this helps.