Share your experiences with this NOS newbie

[edward]

Hi all,

Been a long-time Boogie owner, and have used Mesa tubes for years. But as of late, I have just experimented with NOS tubes in my Fender Princeton Reverb II and am FLOORED at how much better the tone is. So here are my questions to you all:

- Having zero complaints about the glorious tone in my DC5, have any of you guys tried NOS tubes (thinking preamp, here) specifically in your Boogies ...what'd ya find?

- And have any of you tried subbing a 5751 for the 12ax7? I'm thinking of trying this for the V1 and possibly also for just the Lead channel gain stages.

All thoughts and experiences very much appreciated!!


Edward

 

[Dutchman]

I like the old Mullard ECC83's in V1 and V2 nice rich tone. Telefunkens are darker to my ears and the Bugle Boys are brighter, as are the Phillips Miniwatts. The Seimans have a very nice sweetness to them. The RCA and GE tubes seem brighter also, but still sound good.

I'm using the new Tungsol 12ax7s in V3 & V4. The Tungsol 12AX7's sound way better than EH IMHO , I have had very poor experiences with all GT tubes so they'll never get another listen.

Using a 5751 works great. Definitely worth a try. I would describe it as a
cleaner distortion, more open guitar tone than tube distortion. Works well for blues and Fusion tones.

However I love the sound of my clean channel volume on my Mark IIB at 8 with a Mullard ECC83 in V1, awesome breakup with tons of tone.

 

[marklyn]

I've currently got a NOS Tesla in V1 and a Telefunken in V2. I like this setup for the clarity of Rhy1 and and good chunk with definition in Rhy2 and Lead. I tried and 5751 in V1 and didn't like it, then I played with it for a while in V2. I eventually replaced it with the Telefunken. I felt that the 5751 took away too much chunk and grind in Rhy2 and I wasn't getting the creamy singing leads I was looking for. I don't think the 5751 sounded bad, just not what I was wanting in those channels.

 

[edward]

Thanks, guys ...I appreciate the feedback!

Edward

 

[bentium]

mine is completly retubed (except for reverb tube) to 40y old Philips miniwatt tubes alle ECC83, except for v6, wich is a 12at7


they realy made my dc5 more creamy, with more fat and strong puching rythm sounds. the stock mesa tubes sounds too harsh for me. so the nos tubes gave it a little less highs, but more bass and more mids to it

why the 12at7 as phase splitter: now my amps sounds more open, without loosing any definition


ps: i've put a set of jj powertubes in there, man it kicks some *** now . my bands bassplayer (350W ebs basscombo) cant keep up with me, and my mv is at 2 and preampvolume is at 3-4. and i'm just using the single speaker in the combo

 

[Ken j]

Although I have a couple of boxes of NOS RCA preamp tubes (AX & AT) I have never tried them in my DC-5. These comments may get me off my butt and give them a try.

I have tried a few different NOS 6L6 tubes though. I have a number of different ones that I have tried: GE clear tops, RCA clear tops, and RCA silver tops. All of these definitely have a darker sound compared to the stock STR420 tube. I was not comfortable leaving them in since I didn't check the bias. So these tubes are just sitting in a box until they are neeeded.

 

[shakti]

In my '76 original Mk I, I currently have the following:

V1 NOS Tesla E83CC (this is apparently a Telefunken copy)

I forget what the reverb driver is, a 12AT7? If so, I think I have a Mullard in there, or it could be RCA. Same for the PI, I forget if that's a 12AT7 or 12AX7, but I think the latter, and I currently have a GE. Could probably experiment a little more, but I really liked that Tesla in V1, amazing clarity and clean-up, very balanced.

Output is JAN Philips 7581s, same as Sylvania STR387. There's no substitute for those.

The original Mk I is one amp where the tubes make a *huge* difference, perhaps more than any other amp I've tried (well, a Marshall "isn't" a Marshall until it has Mullards in it, at least V1).