The Steel Guitar Forum

I have a blackface Showman that may need new power tubes. I've only paid enough attention to tube brands to know that quality control is a big issue these days. The nuances of how different brands sound, though, has escaped me for the most part.

So, balancing quality control and sonic bliss as much as possible, if a quad set of non-exotic 6L6s was on your shopping list, which ones would you want and why?

Chris Bauer wrote:I have a blackface Showman that may need new power tubes. I've only paid enough attention to tube brands to know that quality control is a big issue these days. The nuances of how different brands sound, though, has escaped me for the most part.

So, balancing quality control and sonic bliss as much as possible, if a quad set of non-exotic 6L6s was on your shopping list, which ones would you want and why?

probably rca because they seem to sound the best to me. i have them in my 66 showman, 64 and 65 bassman as well as 67 pro reverb and 67 super reverb.
other NOS will probably sound great too but i happen to like the rca.

make sure you bias to those new tubes once you get them. makes all the difference in the world.

play music!

If I was going non-NOS I'd buy JJ's from Eurotubes here in the Portland area. I've had the same pair of JJ double-mica 6L6GCs in my Bandmaster Reverb for a couple of years now with no problems. They sound good and don't break the bank.

The last few Sovtec tubes that I've purchased, have had some clunkers in the lot. So this last round with Sovtec's, I returned them and paid the upgrade for Tung-Sol 5881's to go in my Fender Pro Rvb. So I've decided to upgrade my Fender Twin Rvb. to Tung-Sol's. To my ear, they are cleaner than the Sovtec's, and definitely better build quality, even though they're both made in Russia. I can justify paying $24 over $16 per tube, if they continue to perform like these. At $96 for power tubes and $68 for pre-amp tubes to re-tube the Twin, I may wait for the current crop to fail before replacement.

NOS : black plate rca
NEW : JJ euro tubes * long lasting * Great tone*
* Allways bias *

I for one will never use JJ tubes again.

After building hundreds of amps, I can say that the majority of tube failures and rejects I had were JJs. I stick to Ruby tubes now - and my tube related headaches/hair pulling has gone down to nearly none

Sounds like you have to be diligent and persistent about testing them....

I'll second the kudos for the current Tung Sol 5881. It's been a good sounding, robust tube for me. I had them in a Bassman, then put them in my son's Hot Rod Deluxe which he works to death in a rock band. Sounded better than the stock Groove Tubes ever did in that amp.

SED winged C. Breathtaking tone... but can be brash if not biased in their sweet spot. But in the sweet spot I dont know how they could be improved upon.

I'll second the call for Winged C's, but they're ungodly expensive now. I personally have more experience with the Sovtek 6L6WXT+ and the Tung-Sol STR 6L6GC. The Sovteks have never let me down and they seem to be a bit more robust than the average tube with regards to the amount of plate voltage they can take, but harmonically the Tung Sol has a bit of an edge, at the cost of a small amount of clean headroom.

I recently re-tubed my blackface Bandmaster with TAD 6L6GC STR RCA style, and I'm real happy with them. I bought a set of Svetlanas at the same time. I installed and biased each, and the TAD (Tube Amp Dr.) RCA style seemed a slight bit darker, but both sound good to me when properly biased. I've had bad luck with the JJ's..got a bad one right out of the box(it happens) but it took months to figure out what was wrong. The 'Winged 'C' are a little hard to find, and the way the names get shuffled makes it hard to really compare. YMMV.. dave

Well, I have a large tube collection, and haven't had to use any new tubes in my dozen+ amps. But my tech does like the Winged C tubes, and they sound good to me in his amps.
For old tubes? I have a pair of Mullard EL-37s in my '56 Pro Amp. Heavenly!

Well I've only built 86 tube amps and use nothing but JJ tubes.

Mark Fowler wrote:Well I've only built 86 tube amps and use nothing but JJ tubes.

maybe they just kept sending me the bad ones!

I had all kinds of troubles with the JJ tubes. Starting with about 99% of them rattling away like sleighbells in my high power combos. Not so noticeable with 6 string guitar but with pedal steel, there would always seem to be some note that sent them a-jangling.

Then there were several that leaked DC, some that crackled, some with radically mismatched triodes, some with extreme microphonics, some that went "blaaaatmmmm" when you had the amp on for more than 5 minutes.

It got old after a while.

Also, the new sensor tubes were causing bad hairdays too (those are the tung sol reissues and reissues of other brands from yesteryear)

Had 6L6s pop like flashbulbs. Noise. Stormy crackling sounds from preamp tubes. Leaky DC again, heater noise, sleighbells again. Many 12AY7 that sounded like a box fan "whoosh"

Even had some TAD 7025 that were stormy sounding right out of the box. The short bottle TAD 6L6 are actually pretty great - Ruby makes the same tube (same factory and I have nearly exhausted the advance stash of them - they should be in production again soon)

For me, its either the Ruby or NOS tubes. Not sure why, but they have the least amount of problems in my experience. And if they do, there is actually a warranty to back them up. In the rare case I find a bad one (which does happen - albeit much less often) they replace it for up to 6 months.

Winged C stopped production of 6L6 years ago. Those were probably the best - but they are as expensive as NOS american tubes.

I'd say save the headache, and find a pair of vintage Tung Sol 5881 (6L6WC). Those sound great and last forever and are not nearly as expensive as the RCA or other american brands.

" vintage Tung Sol 5881 "
A late friend, who was a Hammond repair guy who parted out organs, gave me 3 dozen of the brown-base Tung Sols. They really are wonderful! I even have a matched quad in my stereo. I'll bet they're fairly expensive now though?

Sylvania/Philips 6L6WGB can be had at a decent price. They are quite good.

SED (Winged C; the real Svetlana) stopped production of ALL receiving tubes, as far as I know.

Steven

I second the RCA NOS. Got em in my 67 Blackface Bassman. They sound more lively than the Sovteks I bought as spares.

Tim Marcus wrote:

Mark Fowler wrote:Well I've only built 86 tube amps and use nothing but JJ tubes.

The short bottle TAD 6L6 are actually pretty great - Ruby makes the same tube (same factory and I have nearly exhausted the advance stash of them - they should be in production again soon)

For me, its either the Ruby or NOS tubes.

Tim I will order up some of those short Ruby 6L6's and see how they sound. Yeah NOS or old tube pulls are good but don't always sound the best in every amp.

Mark

Jan Philips 6L6 GC's hands down. OR Jan Philips 7581A's(military version and tough. I never have blown a Philips power tube--never. I was talked into a set of JJ's. Tone was very nice, but blew a JJ power tube and smoked my amp. Smoked my wallet $400 too. Went back to my Philips and I resume having no problems as well as basking in tone heaven.

My favorite are NOS RCA's BUT have you looked at the price of a matched pair or quad? OUTRAGEOUS!!! I liked the Winged C's. It's a shame they're not being made anymore. I've not tried the Phillips output tubes but I was using some of their JAN 12AT7's for phase inverters on Fender retubes. About 3/4 of the ones I got were bad. If I'm not mistaken the Phillips tubes are the old Sylvania tubes. Phillips bought Sylvania in the 60's or 70's. They were the last company that made a good 6CA7/ EL34 from what I understand. I knlow that in the 80's Eddie Van Halen's amp tech used those in his Marshalls that were ran on lower voltage with a variac. That was supposed to be his tonal secret... run the amps at a LOWER voltage for a "starved plate/brown sound" Unfortunately, that would also run the heaters at a lower voltage causing tube failure. The Phillips would hold up longer that anything else.

What are 7591-A tubes good for? Gotta bunch.

These are still by far the best!
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=75 ... e&_sacat=0

7591's I believe were designed as a more efficient 6L6. Some Ampeg, Magnatone, and Supro amps used them. There are all kinds of cool 25-35 watt amps you could build to use these or get one of the aforementioned vintage amps. Or you could send them to me......

Matthew,
Would they be a good choice for my hot-rodded Princeton Reverb? It has a beefed up Allen PT that will easily handle 6L6s, 6550s, etc. Dr. Z OT. 12" Celestion. PI mod to 20 watts.

I think they would be a great choice for that amp but I'm no expert. I would defer to the more experienced builders who post here like Tim M. or Mark F.

John Billings wrote:Matthew,
Would they be a good choice for my hot-rodded Princeton Reverb? It has a beefed up Allen PT that will easily handle 6L6s, 6550s, etc. Dr. Z OT. 12" Celestion. PI mod to 20 watts.

You'd have to rewire your tube sockets for the different pinout and maybe change out the OT. Not worth it, in my opinion. Nice tube to build from though - except they're very expensive to replace if you don't have your own stash. Scarce and highly sought after by anyone with one of those old Ampegs or Supros that Matthew mentioned. The JJ reissues didn't hold up in my case. May have been my own fault though - I just couldn't get enough negative bias voltage from my power supply to keep them from red-plating.