Triple Recto tube question

wannabweiland · Sep 22, 2009

I've decided to go back to Rectifiers. Can't seem to get their sound out of my brain. I got a great deal on a blackfaced Triple and I was wondering if you could pull a few tubes to get less wattage? Or if there's a way to get it to sound great without leveling my tiny town. I'm used to Duals and 50-watters as of late (Soldano HR50s, Orange RV50s, etc).

Any thoughts? Thanks!

Triple Cheeseburger · Sep 24, 2009

you cant safely pull tubes out of a triple, something to do with un-even impendance on the output transformer i think.

mikey383 · Sep 24, 2009

Can you do it? Yes.

Should you do it? Probably not.

The thing with Dual is, if you pull a pair of tubes, you double the tube impedance, which doubles the output impedance, hence plugging your 8 ohm cab into the 4 ohm output. The 4 ohm out "sees" 8 instead.

With a triple, if you pull a pair of tubes, you're increasing the tube impedance by 1/3. So your 4 ohm output now becomes a 5.33, 8 becomes 10.66, etc.

It's not all that big of a deal, but you're always going to be running at a slight mismatch, no matter what your cabinet is rated at.

Plus, there's not much of a difference between the volume of a Dual and a Triple, or a Single and a Dual. It's more about headroom and not sheer volume.

wannabweiland · Sep 24, 2009

I was a bit leery about pulling tubes anyway, but I remembered someone had mentioned something of the sort. Think maybe an attenuator might do the trick if need be or do you think the volume isn't that substantially different?

mikey383 · Sep 25, 2009

IMO, the volume difference isn't significant. The other guitarist in my old band used a Triple and had no issues with overpowering my Dual. They were comparable in volume and tone at the same settings.

Silverwulf · Sep 25, 2009

Mickey is on the money. You won't need to pull tubes, the volume difference is virtually unnoticeable.

fishyfishfish · Sep 25, 2009

I pulled two tubes in my Dual for a bit, and didn't really notice a huge drop in volume. I belive that high gainers run on the premise that they use a clean power section to amplify the pre amp, so although you might get a little more compression at higher volumes, it kind of defeats the purpose of a hi powered- power section.