Until now I'd been underwhelmed by NOS tubes; I tried some RCA 12AX7As in various spots in my Mark IIIs; ended up keeping them in V1 where they give nice cleans but not really worth the money compared to JJ Golds. RFTs sounded amazing in V1 of my bandmate's Roadster combo, but had a life expectancy of about five hours. The only real NOS success I had had so far was JAN 5751s which sound awesome in my modded Valve Jr.!
So, the other day, I decided to give it a go from another angle and ordered a pair of Siemens/RFT EL34s and a Mullard CV4024 for the outside slots and PI of my green stripe MkIII. Like I always do with new 9-pin types, I gave the 4024 a little run in my VJ and ended up playing it for a good 45 minutes-- had a beautiful warm, sweet, complex tone for incredibly rich cleans with humbuckers. It broke up *very* reluctantly.
First I tried the EL34s in my MkIII with my usual EH 12AT7WC in the PI. A definite difference! $30 worth of difference versus Winged C's... for me, yeah. A bit warmer, more lows, seem to have a little more headroom and break up more gradually, and they seem more "distorted" than overdriven. I'm going to start using dumb tone metaphors here, but it's like all the notes are still there even in complex chords, sounding almost "clean" and the distortion is just like sauce on top, separate but complementary. In Simul-Class the amp overall sounds more "6L6-ey" than before-- a bit less cut, but better headroom, low end, and definition. I think if you were looking for pure saturation for leads or "The Metallica Tone", though, you might want to stick with the Winged C's.
When I popped the 4024 into the PI, it just made everything "sound better." Better definition, better dynamic response, better clarity. My only beef with the Mark III is that it's really, really hard to get it to clean up in Simul-Class if you have humbuckers, but with the 4024 I could get very close and the Duncan Jazz in my neck sounded better than it ever has through this amp. Really nice.
It did add a little too much midrange warmth, I had to dial my mids down from 5 and a bit to just short of 4.5, and then rearrange the EQ that I use for my scooped rhythm tone a little. DEFINITELY worth the $13 difference versus the EH tube, which is by no means a bad tube.
So, the other day, I decided to give it a go from another angle and ordered a pair of Siemens/RFT EL34s and a Mullard CV4024 for the outside slots and PI of my green stripe MkIII. Like I always do with new 9-pin types, I gave the 4024 a little run in my VJ and ended up playing it for a good 45 minutes-- had a beautiful warm, sweet, complex tone for incredibly rich cleans with humbuckers. It broke up *very* reluctantly.
First I tried the EL34s in my MkIII with my usual EH 12AT7WC in the PI. A definite difference! $30 worth of difference versus Winged C's... for me, yeah. A bit warmer, more lows, seem to have a little more headroom and break up more gradually, and they seem more "distorted" than overdriven. I'm going to start using dumb tone metaphors here, but it's like all the notes are still there even in complex chords, sounding almost "clean" and the distortion is just like sauce on top, separate but complementary. In Simul-Class the amp overall sounds more "6L6-ey" than before-- a bit less cut, but better headroom, low end, and definition. I think if you were looking for pure saturation for leads or "The Metallica Tone", though, you might want to stick with the Winged C's.
When I popped the 4024 into the PI, it just made everything "sound better." Better definition, better dynamic response, better clarity. My only beef with the Mark III is that it's really, really hard to get it to clean up in Simul-Class if you have humbuckers, but with the 4024 I could get very close and the Duncan Jazz in my neck sounded better than it ever has through this amp. Really nice.
It did add a little too much midrange warmth, I had to dial my mids down from 5 and a bit to just short of 4.5, and then rearrange the EQ that I use for my scooped rhythm tone a little. DEFINITELY worth the $13 difference versus the EH tube, which is by no means a bad tube.
