Tubes make a difference?

[nabced]

Do tubes make a big difference in the tone you get out of a certain amp? I am looking at buying a Mesa Rec and I see 6l6's in everything practically and i'm wondering if they really do make a huge difference in the tone of your amp.

[The Shadow]

Yes, and yes.

[nabced]

Yes, and yes.

Alright any Recommendations on good tubes for a modern rock sound? or opinions on certain tubes would be greatly appreciated! thanks!

[kayla]

as far as i've read, they can make a very big difference.

[VENTGtr]

Absolutely. For modern Rock stuff, JJs and TungSol are great and pretty commonly used.

Personally, the "standard" JJ 12ax7 pres sound better to me than the "hotter" versions. Those sound a little thinner. BUT, that's all subjective, and it can depend on the rest of your setup.

Check out tubedepot, send them your specs/questions and they can help ya out.

[The Shadow]

Yes, and yes.

Alright any Recommendations on good tubes for a modern rock sound? or opinions on certain tubes would be greatly appreciated! thanks!

The circuit in your amp will be more responsible for the overall sound. If you have an amp that is not capable of achieving a "modern rock sound", as you put it, simply changing tubes will not accomplish too much.

When it comes to tubes, the brands that I stay away from are Groove Tubes and Sovtek.

If you get more specific with the type of tubes in your amp, I can go into further detail. Until then....

[bassist_25]

When it comes to tubes, the brands that I stay away from are Groove Tubes and Sovtek.

...and Ruby, fuckin' garbage. I've had really good luck with Sovtek, though.

If you buy a Mesa and retube it, don't pay for Mesa's tubes. They're just rebranded tubes from other manufacturers sold at a substantial mark up. Many tube outlets will sell kits that are matched for Mesa amps at a much lower cost than it would be to retube a Mesa with their own tubes. Also, I don't know if you know this, but all Mesas have a fixed bias.

[onegunguitar]

When it comes to tubes, the brands that I stay away from are Groove Tubes and Sovtek.

...and Ruby, fuckin' garbage. I've had really good luck with Sovtek, though.

If you buy a Mesa and retube it, don't pay for Mesa's tubes. They're just rebranded tubes from other manufacturers sold at a substantial mark up. Many tube outlets will sell kits that are matched for Mesa amps at a much lower cost than it would be to retube a Mesa with their own tubes. Also, I don't know if you know this, but all Mesas have a fixed bias.

http://mesa.stores.yahoo.net/mesboogtub.html

Maybe this is why they cost more?

[onegunguitar]

By the way Paul....I bought a Mesa Walkabout. SWEET tone at 13 pounds!!

[bassist_25]

I've never had the pleasure of playing through a Walkabout, but I've heard many of them and they are really sweet! If I were considering a new combo, the Walkabout combo would be one of the first on my list to check out.

[onegunguitar]

I ran it through my Mesa 4x12 last weekend...sounded fantastic

[VENTGtr]

Good points on here. I'd be pretty sure a Rec would work for Modern Rock. I'd also ad TADs to the list to stay away from.

Mesa tubes came up on the Blackstar site not long ago and I said the same thing Paul said. Have had some that are good, decent, and some that are lousy. They're just rebranded something else. I'm sure they look for good ones from vendors, but not always the case.

GTs, at least a couple of years ago, were preetty good. They'd become more JJ-like. Do't know how they are nowadays. Sovteks I'd agree, can be hit or miss.

Pretty good standard quality, for me, have been Mullards, JJs, TungSols. There are a lot of others around, some great, but I like those.

[nabced]

Yes, and yes.

Alright any Recommendations on good tubes for a modern rock sound? or opinions on certain tubes would be greatly appreciated! thanks!

The circuit in your amp will be more responsible for the overall sound. If you have an amp that is not capable of achieving a "modern rock sound", as you put it, simply changing tubes will not accomplish too much.

When it comes to tubes, the brands that I stay away from are Groove Tubes and Sovtek.

If you get more specific with the type of tubes in your amp, I can go into further detail. Until then....

i had the question from looking around at tube amps actually specifically the Mesa Single/Dual Rec series, which i have seen a lot of people online who are selling them marketing them with 6l6s included i wanted really to know what tubes are good for what more or less. I'm just concerned about buying a nice Tube amp and having crappy tubes in it that the guy had and not knowing what i should switch out to make the problem change. The tone i look for is more modern--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC2EeVIaFaU (example for what i shoot for tonewise.

[The Shadow]

Let's take the 6L6 you mention. Many different amps utilize the 6L6 and all of those amps sound different based on the circuit. A Fender Hot Rod Deluxe isn't going to sound like a Rectifier just because it has the same tube in it's power section.

I wouldn't worry so much. If you're buying a Rectifier because you like the way it sounds, what difference does it make what brand of tubes are in it ? If I play an amp and it sounds good, I don't care what style or brand of tubes it has.

The thing that will make more of a difference in sound than tubes is the cabinet and speaker you plan on using.

[StumbleFingers]

The tone i look for is more modern--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC2EeVIaFaU (example for what i shoot for tonewise.

You should be able to get that tone out of any Recto, including the awesome little Mini (which has EL84s). Like Shadow said, guitars and speakers will be a big factor too.

A good rule of thumb with any amp, new or used, is to give it a shot with the tubes and speakers it would have shipped with. That'll give you an idea what the amp is designed to sound like. If nothing else it'll give you a baseline to compare to if you decide to make any changes to the amp.

Embarrassing personal story... When the Peavey 5150 came out, I bought one and was very disappointed to find that it shipped with crappy Chinese tubes. I retubed it with higher quality tubes, which wasn't cheap. It sounded WORSE with the good tubes. That confused the heck out of me. So I called up Peavey to see what I was doing wrong. They put me through to the guy who designed the amp, James "Not the Godfather of Soul" Brown. He laughed and basically said, "It sounds better with cheap tubes because I design the amps using the actual components we manufacture with. It's engineered to sound good with those tubes." So the Chinese tubes went back in and the amp sounded better. YMMV.

[bassist_25]

The tone i look for is more modern--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC2EeVIaFaU (example for what i shoot for tonewise.

Thanks for the link. I really dug that tune, and that is definitely some killer guitar tone to strive for.

What Mel says about circuits is true. With that said, IME, 6L6s have a gradual and linear distortion curve to them. That is, as you turn up, the amp becomes more crunchy. KT88s, on the other hand, stay relatively clean until they reach the end of their output, and then they become really saturated.

What Greg is saying about amps being built around new tube holds true as well. You really see something similar to this in the bass world, where a lot of companies make otherwise completely solid-state amps that have a single 12AX7 in the preamp circuit. Those tubes do offer a little bit of color to the tone, but it's not night and day. Tube swapping does give you some different flavoring, but IME, the circuits aren't sensitive enough to display major tonal changes between tubes. In other words, if one of these single 12AX7 amps had a Ruby or Groove Tube in it, I'd probably switch it out for a JJ, but I wouldn't drop a pricey NOS Mullard or Telefunken in it. In those circuits, I'd probably hardly hear a difference let alone a layperson audience member.

I agree that if a used amp ships with tubes, it's a good move to give those tubes a fair shake. As I stated in the EQ thread, a lot of new production tubes fail more often than they should. Not always, but usually if these tubes are gonna fail, they're going to do so early within their lives. Therefore, if tubes have had some hours on them, you can be more confident that they're not going to crap out. If you immediately re-tube an amp, you are running the risk that one of them may fail early on.

[VENTGtr]

Something else to keep in mind, while the Mesa is fixed bias, they can be modded to adjust, or you can order "hotter" biased tubes. How the bias is set can affect overall sound.

[nabced]

Thanks for all the replies it helped me a lot!