Roadster headroom- new tubes?

[alex1fly]

Can I swap preamp tubes in my Roadster to get more clean headroom without sacrificing my dirty tones? I have stock preamp tubes and my power tubes are the Mesa/Semiens NOS EL-34s. Thanks!

 

[Rocky]

Not really. if you want a cleaner tube you are going to lose gain tone. The way I look at it headroom has nothing to do with the preamp anyway.

Headroom = how loud you can go before the amp breaks up...thats a power amp thing.

 

[domct203]

Not really. if you want a cleaner tube you are going to lose gain tone. The way I look at it headroom has nothing to do with the preamp anyway.

Headroom = how loud you can go before the amp breaks up...thats a power amp thing.

+1

You'll need to lower the pre amp's 1st gain stage, and that will effect ALL stages afterwards.

Dom

 

[123thefirst]

A lot of the better quality NOS preamp tubes will give you significantly better dynamics than current production tubes. So if you care to swap sustain for punch that could be a way to go for V1 and maybe V2. Then with maybe Tung Sol reissues in V3-6 you might a really nice response.