Members elsupermanny14 Posted March 4, 2008 Members Share Posted March 4, 2008 Yeah I really want to know about Triode/Pentode switches. Teach anything and everything. How do they work? What does it do? How does it cut the power in half? Does it change the sound, tone, or characteristic of the amp? Anything and everything! lol...The differences between that an using an attenuator? Please someone fill me in on this! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members balthazarr Posted March 4, 2008 Members Share Posted March 4, 2008 The pentode has 5 elements.Plate, heater filament, cathode, screen grid, and suppressor grid.The heater in the tube is powered by filament wiring coming from the power supply. These heat up the cathode, which starts shedding "boiling off" electrons causing DC current to flow through the tube. The very low signal from the guitar goes into the preamp section of the amp and the preamp tubes do the initial signal amplification and tone shaping. This signal comes out of the preamp section and is introduced into the power tubes at the grid. The screen grid helps keep the electron flow stable by reducing oscillations. The suppressor grid deflects secondary emissions back to the plate, which results in more power. The plate receives the electrons coming from the cathode. As current flows from the cathode to the plate, the varying preamp signal on the grid is amplified big-time (amplification factor) and then it flows into the output transformer, which drives the speaker.Triode/Pentode switch is thrown to Triode, the screen grid is tied directly to the plates of the tubes, essentially eliminating the suppressor grid. This reduces the power of the amp and changes its tone and feel. The volume is lower, the tone is smoother and darker and the breakup happens sooner. It's a nice thing to have for lower volume situations, for bright guitars and probably for players who like jazz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members elsupermanny14 Posted March 4, 2008 Author Members Share Posted March 4, 2008 Kool anyone else want to add to this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jerry_picker Posted March 4, 2008 Members Share Posted March 4, 2008 Cool. The counter-intuitive thing is that taking away the supressor grids (going pentide to triode) reduces the amplification factor. Oh, but it surely does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members elsupermanny14 Posted March 5, 2008 Author Members Share Posted March 5, 2008 So how does the pentode/triode mode affect the tone and characteristics of the amp? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members balthazarr Posted March 5, 2008 Members Share Posted March 5, 2008 So how does the pentode/triode mode affect the tone and characteristics of the amp? Warmth. The volume is lower, the tone is smoother and darker and the breakup happens sooner. It's a nice thing to have for lower volume situations, for bright guitars and probably for players who like jazz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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