Which has more of an effect on amp tone...speakers/tubes?

[nosajwp]

Which do you think has more of an effect on changing the sound of an amp...changing to different models of speakers, or switching between tube brands?



I have a Mesa DC-10 2x12 combo with JJ tubes throughout, and Eminence Swamp Thang speakers. The clean channel is perfect, but the lead channel just doesn't have that "bite" or "edge" that I hear in a lot of Mesas.



I've talked with a bunch of tube vendors that have said the JJ's are taking the "bite" away, but I've also read that the Swamp Thangs can do that too. I've been thinking of either switching to 12AX7EH's and SED 6L6's, or changing to Celestion Century's. Which do you guys think would be more beneficial?

 

[Elpelotero]

IMO, speakers generally play a much bigger role in overall tone shaping than do tubes. tubes affect little nuances such tightness or brightness, but a speaker has a definate impact on the way the frequencies are projected. some speakers have a mid quality, others high freq, dark, others vintage, smooth, etc....ehh..I feel like I'm not getting across too well b/c tubes can be described the same way. But yeah, try out diff speakers. Take your amp to a shop and plug it into a different cab. You'll hear what I meant to say.

 

[stokes]

Both are equally important in shaping your tone.In this case I would tend to think your tubes have more to do with taking the "bite" out of the tone.I am not real familiar with the DC10 but I am sure it has the same non-adjustable bias circuit.If you are not using Mesa tubes you cant be sure where the power tubes are biased,so I dont think it is the brand of tubes,if you used a different set of JJ's the distortion quality would most likely be different.What you describe sounds like the tubes you have are biased on the cold side.I have never dealt with Eurotubes but I hear he matches his tubes the way Mesa and GT do,where they are grouped to have different breakup,but even still,it is a general type grouping,there is a lot of lattitude within a certain color or number group.Without modifying the bias circuit your best bet is to get tubes from Mesa or GT they will get you closer to what you are looking for,or you could try Euro and see what he can do for you.Changing the speakers in this case I dont feel will get you where you want to be.For the most part with Mesa amps most of you distortion is generated in the pre-amp,and if your power tubes arent biased "hot" enough your tone is gonna be flat no matter what speakers you use.Just my two cents.

 

[cvansickle]

Speaks!

 

[Russ]

To answer your question about which has more effect on your amps tone, I must say that your speaker choice will have more effect on your tone. I play my Mark IV through EVM-12L's right now but I was playing it through greenbacks. The greenbacks were much sweeter and warmer but the EVM-12L gives you a better representation of what your amp is actually sounding like.

I have swapped tubes a lot and it does effect your tone but not as much as your speakers. The tubes will further shape your tone but it is not until you have the correct speakers for what you want that I would try to start swapping your tubes.

Getting your tone will depend upon what it is that you hear in your head as your holy grail tone. I would suggest trying different speakers first then once you settle in on a sound then start swapping your tubes. Being that Mesa amps have a fixed bias that is cold I would suggest trying to get your distortion from the preamp unless you are playing out all the time with big shows where you can turn your amp up loud enough to get power tube distortion (probably in large or outdoor venues). For most, preamp tubes tailor distortion and tonal qualities as was mentioned before giving you varying degrees of tightness and brightness.

As far as your amp singing goes, that comes from the power tubes and you will only achieve that when you get loud enough to take advantage of the qualities of the tubes you select. If you want that sooner look for power tubes that break up sooner and that have a bias that is naturally colder. This will allow your fixed bias to seem hot to the tube and you will achieve "that" tone.

Spend some time with different cabinet types too. This will affect how your speakers act and how your sound will become. Closed back cabinets are tighter with more bottom than open. A Thiele style cabinet will give more bottom but it will not punch quite as hard. More speakers move more air and sound fuller but there is a point of diminishing returns there too and that will depend upon the size of the venue. Usually a 1x12 is fine for home practice and some small gigging. A 2x12 will cover most clubs and a 4x12 will cover larger clubs. A pair of 4x12's will cover the largest clubs to venues such as small stadiums. As your venue gets bigger so do your stacks. Though you can always get away using a 1x12 that is mic'd into the PA anywhere providing they have a PA.

Check out the working frequencies of the speakers that you are looking at and their resonant frequencies. These qualities will ultimately tell you where the speaker's voicing is.

Now for those that will argue that a set of premium NOS tubes or even premium current production tubes will affect your tone more try plugging your amp into a really shitty speaker (by this I mean some no name brand that just plain sucks) then plug into a nice set of speakers. Even with your premium tubes you will sound like crap in the shitty speaker. With so-so tubes in nice speakers you will at least sound ok if not good.

With bang for the buck as a consideration, speakers can give you more tone.

Examples:

NOS Mullards in the preamp and NOS Tung Sol in the power section (could be over $1000) vs. a replacement speaker (maybe a couple hundred). This example is for older gear.

Full set of JJ's (depending upon the amp- figure a couple hundred) vs. a replacement speaker (could be as cheap as $40). This example is for current production.

As far as enclosures go, what it looks like is nowhere near as important as what it sounds like providing that its cosmetic flaws do not alter your sound (which in most cases they won't).

Here's something to think about.... the difference between a standard speaker vs. a Leslie. Which makes makes more of an effect now?

 

[stokes]

"If you want that sooner look for power tubes that break up sooner and that have a bias that is naturally cooler".Dont quite get what you are saying here.Tubes that are biased colder will break up later,in order to get earlier breakup your tubes have to be biased hotter.Tubes dont have a natural bias point,it is set by the bias circuit.If the tubes are biased cold they will not have a harmonic distortion,they have what is called crossover distortion which sounds thin,weak and "non-musical".As far as what you describe as "****" speakers,even the best EV speaker is going to sound like crap if your tubes are not biased correctly,and we already know he has decent speakers,okay EV's will sound better than the Eminence he has but he should be able to get a better sound than he describes with what he has.I happen to be a big fan of NOS tubes and use them exclusively in all my amps,but have installed and biased just about every current production tube out there for others and when biased right the new tubes sound fine.My point is if you cant set the bias on your power tubes as is the case with Mesa,and I own 2 that I have modded so this adjustment can be made,you aint getting all you can out of your tubes.He describes his tone as not having that bite or edge.The fact that his clean channel is perfect leads me to believe his speakers are at least adequate and his problem could be more related to underbiased tubes.Moddifying the bias circuit is really quite simple and inexpensive,it just involves removing a resistor and replacing it with a cermet pot.He is using a combo amp so going into a store and trying his amp with ext.cabs aint gonna tell him much,when he finds the speakers he decides give him "that tone" it aint gonna be there when he puts them in his combo.

 

[screamingdaisy]

Speakers

 

[vcamargo99]

From my 30+ years of playing, iv'e swapped out too many tubes and speakers to count. A speaker swap can make a significant change in tone, moreso than any tube change I've ever made. That being said, I do swap out tubes constantly to fine tune my sound. Even an individual preamp tube can change the sound enough to be easily noticed. I like JJ's, but I do hear a brighter tone when I use 12AX7EH's. I think you will too. I use them to brighten up an old Fender Blues Junior and Marshall JCM800. Four 12ax7EH's would run you about $50 and you might not need all of them. Look at your manual to see if one or more of the tubes primarily affect the lead channel and try swapping those. If you need more brightness then a speaker swap is next. The swamp thangs are wonderful speakers, but they are on the warmer side. A speaker swap will change BOTH channels though. ONE speaker swap might be in order. I have a cab with 2 eminence GB12's and 2 eminence v12's. It's an excellent combination, better than all four the same (tried it!). I (and many others) have mixed and matched speakers in cabs and combos with great success, and great failures.

My point is, a speaker swap has a greater affect on tone, but if you are "close" to getting the tone you want you might only need to change a tube or two and/or just a speaker.

 

[Russ]

Stokes- you don't get it. Yes, your bias in the amplifier can be set differently if you have adjustable bias or physically change values to change your amp's bias setting. Some power tubes (from here on out I will simply refer to them as tubes) have a natural affinity for more juice so to speak. These values will change from tube to tube even in the same production run. The idea that a tube has a natural bias has to be pondered if you think of the amp as having the bias. In fact the tube is the item being affected by the voltage that you are applying to it. Therefore it is the tubes natural ability to react to such current that I refer to as the tube's bias point. If tubes were to not have such a characteristic then there would be no way to group them or match them etc. Think of a tube as a fuse or a bulb. The component only can handle a certain amount of current to operate. It is the balancing act of applying the right amount of current to your tubes that most will call biasing. In the process of purchasing tubes you typically buy tubes to a particular bias point then adjust the amp accordingly if possible or necessary. For example if you buy tubes for a Mesa without an adjustable bias you need to be sure that they fall within Mesa specs or you will find some serious problems. This will lead to having to get your amp modified to accept them or to have an adjustable bias circuit. If you run them anyway without modifications then there are a number of problems that will arise. Let's stay on the idea of just buying the right tubes. Most vendors will ask what you are putting your tubes in or you can tell them. This will ensure that the tubes will be compatible with your amp. How would anyone be able to properly identify what tubes to put into the amp without the reference to the manufacturer's spec if tubes didn't have a natural characteristic that would perform at different levels with varying voltage levels applied? I guess the confusion comes in for you with the thought of cooler bias as being from an amplifier's point of view as being more headroom. This is not untrue. An amplifier with a cold bias has tons of headroom. It is not until you get the tubes cooking that you get any break up. For this train of thought think of the tube itself as being the opposite. Relate to the GT hardness scale. If you want a tube that will break up later you want more headroom and thus a higher hardness level. This actually means a tube that can handle more current. If you refer to this as being more current = hotter in the case of electrical components and electronics then you will see where I am coming from. A tube that is effectively cooler in this line of thinking will get physically hotter sooner thus causing break up sooner. With that in mind relate that to a fixed bias. You do not want a hot tube but a physically hot tube. You want a colder tube because it will break up sooner. In any event this was just a sidenote for the original question at hand. The issue here was speakers or tubes as having more effect on your tone. Speakers are the clear winner. With regards to your analogy that bad tubes will sound like crap with good speakers, I can only say that this is true too. That is why I said that you should find the right speaker for your needs first then go on to dialing what tubes you want. His speaker seems to sound ok for cleans. It is in the leads that he seems to be having the problem. Maybe the speaker is not voiced for what he is doing in the leads or maybe it is just a bad speaker. The swamp thang is supposed to have great bottom end, sustain, and be chunky. Maybe it doesn't have enough bite. To me, it could be that the speaker doesn't have the right voicing if he is not getting the bite he wants. He might need a speaker that is crispier. As far as crispiness goes, JJ preamp tubes tend to sound darker so he may just need to get something more on the lines of an EH for his preamp tube selection. For all we know he may just need to readjust his amp. It could be the guitar and pickup selection also that is doing this. It could be a cable that is too long that is applying extra signal loss. Who knows? The question asked was regarding more effect on sound. It wasn't anything else relating to it. Now try this thought... both his amp and the tubes are fixed bias. You can effectively adjust your amp's bias if you choose to go that route. You cannot adjust a tube's bias even if you tried. A tube has a specific value that is naturally existing and occuring within the tube itself. So you want a tube that falls within spec that will heat up faster. Any way you put it, cooler or hotter, the tube will need to break up sooner for power tube distortion. If you are solely looking for preamp distortion as is the tendency in the fixed cold bias of the amp itself then you want a tube that has more headroom and breaks later. With this in mind I believe the only reasons for going fixed bias was for Mesa amps to retain some semblance of ruggedness and longevity of tube life. Thereby creating a situation where you tubes last longer. The fixed bias also makes it so that buying tubes is simpler provided that you buy within the Mesa brand. If not then you have to get technical and figure out the spec and apply it to other brands. Most here know the relationship to GT and therefore can use GT's also. It is in buying outside of these manufacturers that things can get a little confusing if you don't have the actual specs sitting in front of you. I don't think that there are too many here that know the mOhms or mA that you would be searching for and most would get confused anyway. Then to apply that to buying a tube that still fits within the spec that has more of the charateristics that you want would compound the issue here. For most, you can simply buy the correct color grading within the Mesa brand that suits your needs for a specific tube. It is only when you achieve the level of ear that causes you to want more that you find yourself getting more into finding tubes elsewhere.

Here's a little scenario that you might appreciate. I have an old JMP head. I can play it through 8 different speaker types in 10 different enclosures. I can tell you right now though the EVM is a great speaker I prefer it through greenbacks. I played it through V30's and G12T-75's and it didn't do anything for me. I also played it through 65's and 70's. The magic was almost there. I also played through 50's. It wasn't there for sure. Plugging into the greenbacks was incredible. I also swapped preamp tubes in and out. I played through 60's RCA's and GE's, Mesa STR12ax7s, OE (Chinese from the JCM800), GT Russian and C9's, EH's, JAN Phillips, and Sovtek 12ax7WA and WB. I can tell you that honestly there was not as much effect on my sound going form those tubes as there was going to the greenback. I did however find a certain sweetness in using Mullards that was unexplained. This would not have been as evident through the other speakers. Power tubes I didn't change because I do not have the proper equipment on hand to do bias the amp correctly for the changes I could make. With my Mesa Mark IV, I like a vintage GE in V1 and I am still swapping around for V2-5. Though I have an EH12at7 in the reverb because I have the A version chassis.

As far as the statement that "He is using a combo amp so going into a store and trying his amp with ext.cabs aint gonna tell him much,when he finds the speakers he decides give him "that tone" it aint gonna be there when he puts them in his combo." is concerned, I know that it isn't going to be instant gratification if he doesn't have the proper tubes installed. It also may sound slightly different anyway if the speaker was in a sealed cabient because he is in a combo cabinet. I have been playing long enough to know that those thoughts are not even an issue. If you like a certain speaker in a certain enclosure you buy that speaker and enclosure if the enclosure is not the type you own already. This gets back to the addage that if you want to sound like a certain guitar through certain effects into a certain amp and speakers then you should probably get that rig because no amount of attempting to go another route is ever going to get you there. Some may not need as much amp but there again never truly nail a tone. Some may buy a different guitar in hopes of it being close enough to get a certain tone. That doesn't work either. Granted tone is primarily in your gear but it is your hands that let it out. You must be able to milk the tone out of your gear to sound good.

Nosajwp- I agree with the tube vendors that the JJ's may be sucking the bite off your amp. I also as you may have read above agree that the Swamp thangs are doing it too. Your thoughts to go to EH might help. I find EH preamp tubes to be bright and tight. As far as the SEDs go, I haven't tried those yet. Celestion Century is a nice speakers. Your typical Celestion has that English sound to it. They bite. I would try to get away from the Emminence stuff. If nothing else you will get better reproduction of the sound your amp is making. Then it is a no brainer. It is easier to adjust your tube selection if you already have good speakers. I think that a good choice for you might be the C90's or maybe a combination of a C90 and a V30.

 

[stokes]

Russ,I do get it.I am merely going by the info the guy gave us.First,he is not using Mesa or GT's,he has JJ's- if they are in the right "zone" as far as bias is concerned it is pure luck.As you say the values will change from tube to tube even in the same production run,which is exactly why,if you are not using Mesa or GT tubes which have been put in a circuit and graded before you buy them,you have to reset the bias for the tubes you use.In the example you give with your JMP I have to assume your output is biased properly,in which case of course every speaker change or pre-amp tube change is going to make a difference.Look, I agree with the fact that speakers make a big change in tone,assuming everything else in the amp is up to spec.It is almost impossible to diagnose an amp this way,without having the amp on the bench in front of us,but based on the symptons and conditions he gave us,his clean channel is good but he aint getting the bite or edge on his lead channel,I still got to think his power tubes are underbiased and no matter what speaker he uses he aint gonna get the "balls" if his amp aint biased right.The speaker can only give you what the amp gives it.I do agree with a lot of your points but again you are assuming he has the right power tubes working.If he walked into my shop with the same "complaint"before I started trying to sell him new speakers I would open the amp up and check his bias first then pre-amp tubes and if they were all up to spec then you have to suspect a speaker change,you see what I'm saying?My feeling on the whole Mesa grading system is that it is a way to sell more tubes under the guise of making it easier for the average player to change his own tubes without having a tech set the bias.I have found that with their system the tubes are ,at least all the Boogies I've serviced,biased way to cold just to keep things safe.I have only used the Mesa tubes in my own amp once,probably 20yrs ago in my SOB.I then modded the bias circuit on that and my IIc+,and I aint saying the tube itself was the problem,but it just wasnt biased to my taste.If somebody brings me an amp that doesnt have an adjustable bias pot to be retubed I will install it for nothing,that is how important I feel it is.I'll admit I am pretty anal when it comes to biasing,I have 14 amps that me and both my sons use,and I spend a lot of time checking the bias,you would be surprised at how much it drifts as the tubes age.Anyway,until he either gets the "right" tubes from Mesa or GT or has the bias checked I still gotta think chasing speakers aint gonna do it yet.

 

[Russ]

Nosajwp-
You might want to check your preamp tubes in V1-3. These are the tubes responsible for your Lead channel's gain. A simple swap around might do it for you. Sometimes a tube will sound better in an alternate position. Depending upon the strength of the tube you may have a tube that is good on one side and bad on the other but still passes the QA for the manufacturer. I have found similar results even in Mesa's SPAX7s. They are supposed to be Mesa's higher graded tubes but I got several that barely passed as good on one side of the dual triode. This may be the case with your preamp tubes. If you have a failing preamp tube that barely is hanging on you will still get sound but it will lack the real guts that it should have. This could be the reason for the lack of bite on the Lead channel. Basically if the triode fails it will not make any sound so you aren't that bad off yet. Depending upon your settings it will have its toll on the tube also. If you are using heavy gain expect a shorter life in your tube. I would say swap them around using V4-5 as tubes to swap through. Just remember that your V4 is the rest of the rhythm channel and V5 is the reverb. So if you still need your rhythm channel then I would sacrifice the reverb first. How old are the JJ's? Did you have the amp before the JJ's? Do you still have some of the old preamp tubes lying around? There is nothing wrong with a mixed bag of tubes occupying the sockets. Some people like it better that way.

I still think that to answer the original question.... Speakers are more beneficial than tubes and make more of an impact on your sound though tubes are still very important.

 

[t0aj15]

8)

 

[darkbluemurder]

Definitely speakers.

 

[dyer1618]

ok my friend i own 2 dc 10 heads and have had some time to experiment. first off the eminence speakers you have are pretty responsive, so i dont think a speaker swap will help you much. but your preamp tubes have a lot to do with how the amp feels. jj preamp tubes are kinda mushy on the attack and especially worse if you are using a jj in the phase inverter spot. if you want to tighten the amp up a bit try some tung sol reissue's this should help. also i am swapping out the output transformer with a mercury magnetics tranny. i've been told this will make a massive difference. so i'll keep the forum posted on the results.