Stiletto Deuce or Trident Owners - Improve your amps tone

[BMarchant]

Ok Guys,
My Favorite tone is a old Marshall but with more tight bottom end. James Gang is a good example but with better low end. Black Crowes, Cry of Love. Power tube type distortion not pre amp fuzz distortion.

A friend of mine who likes basically the same type of sound had a Stiletto Trident that he's been playing and liked, so I thought I'd check it out. Found a Deuce cheap, so I bought it. Sounded real good in the store, better then a stock Marshall, but at real volume, high end was sharp, and low end was lacking. Red channel Fluid Drive was junk. His amp sounded about the same. Reading some of the comments on this forum, I'd say a lot of the Stiletto owners who were getting the hollywood mod done felt the same way. Here is the fix without doing the Hollywood mod if your after the same tone I was after.

I changed the tubes to these. Groove Tube GT-E34-LS in either a 5 -6 or 7 for hardness. Then I changed all the preamp tubes to the Groove tube GT-12AX7-M tubes (mullard). The M is not as bright as the ECC83S or the stock Mesa 12AX7s which sounded Russian (bright and harsh) .

This is what it did for the sound of both my deuce and his trident amp.

GT-E34-LS -Low end tight and thick. I can now use the FLUID-DRIVE for solos or chords, which was unplayable before. The Crunch in channel one is maybe THE BEST sounding Marshall type tone I've heard other then a $4000.00 Bogner XTC classic, which is also amazing sounding.

12AX7-M- The pre amp tubes are the mullard copies. They got rid of that nasty high end cut your head off sound that had you setting the treble and presence at 9:00 o'clock or lower in order to remove it. I can now use the treble and presence controls as needed.

Everybodys taste and sounds are different. If your looking for the sound I described, that old Marshall type sound, these tubes are the answer.

LAARS

 

[abe]

I am new to tubes - Just got my 1st tube amp, the Stiletto Ace 2*12 less than a week ago. My question is, how do you know the hardness of the tubes?

When I bought my amp, they threw in a full set of tubes, including the power, rectifer and pre amp tubes, but were out of the Mesa and gave me GT 12AX7R's. Using these voids my warranty.

Anyway, how do I know the hardness?

 

[stash49]

You are talking about your stage I stilettos, right? The Ace, and other stage II stilettos seem to have other issue that proper tube placement would fix.

 

[Charlie]

I'm going to try some Tung Sols in my preamp as soon as I get them in this week. The amp already sounds great but after hearing the difference they made in my F-50 I figure I'll give it a try and see what it sounds like.

My Deuce is a bit bright so maybe the Tung Sols will tame it like it did for the F-50.

I've never liked Mesa's preamp tubes I always end up switching them out whenever I've had them in an amp. I'm surprised my Deuce sounds as good as it does with them in there.

 

[BMarchant]

Hi Stash49,
Ya, its the Stiletto Deuce 1 not the newer one. High end was way too bright. The Low end was ok, but not big and tight. I matched the tubes to what I was hearing or not hearing in the amp.

A great tube sound breakdown is "A TUBE PRIMER FOR GUITAR AND BASS PLAYERS" Guitar Amplifier Blueprinting by Myles S. Rose at www.guitaramplifierblueprinting.com its a free download. He gives you a good idea of what brand and make of tube has what sound. Then you can match your tubes to the amp.

The amp sounds totally different then with the Mesa tubes. My friend just went back into the studio to record last week with his Stiletto with the new tubes in it. He said the engineer noticed the difference between the amp from the last time he had recorded it.

When I first went to these tubes, we A/B 'd the two amps. His Trident and my Deuce. At low volume they sounded the same. As you turned it up it was a huge difference. We even ran both of them through my Marshell stereo cab and had him play through both amps. The sound was night and day. The tubes really make that much of a difference.



LAARS

 

[BMarchant]

Hi DOPEMAN,
Mine was way too bright too. Which is why I was looking for different tubes. The GT 12AX7-M Pre amp tubes took the highs and brought them down. The Power Tubes I used really helped with the low end and fixed the Fluid Drive channel so you can actually use it.

LAARS