The Steel Guitar Forum

Looking to retube my Peavey Delta Blues 1-15.. obviously, I'm looking for late breakup.
It came to me with Mesa branded tubes that I like the sound of, and would buy again, but they're $50 a pair.. and I need 4! I've had too many failures with JJ's, so, not interested in those.
Anyone using a quad EL84 amp that they like the sound of? TIA!

I know you said you had trouble with JJ, but I have a dual EL84 amp (Maven Peal Zeeta) and when I needed to re-tube I talked to the guy that designed it (Dave Zimmerman) and of all the options, he recommended a matched set of JJ tubes from Tubes and More/Antique Electronic Supply. I've been very happy with those. A set of 4 will run you in the $50 range, or burned-in for $5 more. But if you want other brands, they have a good range that they'll match and burn in, they use Apex matching, https://www.apexmatching.com/ .They're at https://www.tubesandmore.com Mike

I have had good luck with the Russian 6P14P-EV.
They have a tighter feel and later breakup. They work very well for me. I have read that they are very robust and will last.

Try the 6P14P-EV. They last a very long time and sound nice to my ear.

@Mike: JJ seems to have a solid reputation, but after having failures with the 6L6's (catastrophic) and EL84's (noisy at idle), I lost confidence in the brand... I wish they had worked for me, considering their cost and availability..

@Mark and Aaron: I see that tube with many suffixes..K, M, ER, EV, no suffix.. where do you get yours? I see the Reflektor factory has their own site, too.
Thanks!

See if KT88s will work for you.

Ken Metcalf wrote:See if KT88s will work for you.

A Delta Blues would require some pretty serious modification to to use KT88s

I installed a set of JJ tubes in my Delta Blues 115 and within about 6-8 hrs of playing time 2 of the El84's blew. Different sockets. They sound much better than the Sovtek tube they replaced. You may have to spring for the Mesa tubes.

@Greg: That's kinda what I'm thinking, but I'm going to look into the 6p14p cv's a little deeper. The ones with no suffix are stock Sovteks, but the EV's might be worth trying. Still.. it's hard to argue with success..

Dave, I bought a dozen or so off of EBay from a Russian seller years ago. The EV is a long life tube. I’ve run them hard and they do last a long time. You can probably find nicer sounding tubes but for the price, they tick all the boxes for me.

Mark Draycott wrote:I have had good luck with the Russian 6P14P-EV.
They have a tighter feel and later breakup. They work very well for me. I have read that they are very robust and will last.

I had a Drz Z with el84s, I fixed the problem of them red plating by changing to Russian 500v military grade tubes. Seems, and I may not have the terminology correct, that the Dr Z was supplying/drawing 300v to the tubes, which is what the JJ were rated at so, any tube that was below spec would red plate when driven.

Try this site:
https://www.thetubestore.com/power-tube ... tube-types

The "preferred" series is very good, but might be more $. I've also had good results with the Tong Sol they sell.
There is a lot of good info on this site as well.

JD