Members Slaymoar Posted August 19, 2012 Members Share Posted August 19, 2012 This is a good summary. If you'd try all these tubes in the same amp, you might have different overall opinions on them... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Stonedtone Posted August 19, 2012 Members Share Posted August 19, 2012 If you'd try all these tubes in the same amp, you might have different overall opinions on them... I base my assessment on my Univalve use. Same amp. I do tons of tube swaps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JB6464 Posted August 19, 2012 Members Share Posted August 19, 2012 6V6- Warm, semi-aggressive. Nice cleans6L6- Glassy, best cleans, complex, but not in your face distortionEL84- Chimey, of course. Interesting distortion with a nice barkEL34- Best distortion. Round, aggressive. Not great cleans Where would the KT66 fall into in tones ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tech21man Posted August 20, 2012 Members Share Posted August 20, 2012 every time i think i can pin down a tube's sound, i find an amp that makes me think oti herwise than what i thought.i always associated 6v6es with small fenders. then i played a roccaforte with them. sounded like a gainy hiwatt. i always thought el84's were too little and not beefy enough. then i played a mesa .50 cal. totally not so. i always disliked 6l6es because they were too hard and midrange scooped. then i played a mesa electradyne which sounded like a classic marshall.there's generalities.. but even they don't hold very well. look into the circuits-- i think there's more similarities in CIRCUITS than there are in the tubes themselves-- but this's been said.. I always read about EL84's being too little, not having bass blah blah. Well, I always laugh on ignorance which of course may be totally right for one's personal experience. When I first posted a thread on this forums years ago it was about two amps I found locally, an ENGL thunder 50 and the mesa studio.22+. I wanted more of a modern sound with mesa elements, mainly metallica type stuff and I said that in theory the ENGL should be the obvious choice due to 6L6 (never had a tube amp in the past just reading stuff till then). The wisest thing one said to me was to not disregard the little boogie due to EL84s! Bottom line I hated the ENGL 6L6 or not, I liked the boogie and ended up buying another EL84 boogie later on the f-30. The f-30 destroyed and still does many amps for high gain. To expect "thumb" or "sub bass" from EL84 amps and ending up blaming it on the power tube is STUPID because most of these amps are low wattage. You need horsepower and big cabs to get there especially for bass frequencies (in very high levels to be more precise). There adequately powered EL84 amps mainly peavey's which upped the classic series up to 80 watts or so. Just ask which amp forum member gtjumper will use for his brutal band when he'll open for fear factory (peavey classic 50 class AB EL84). It is all about the application and the circuit, preamp cab. The power tube is the icing on the cake in my limited experience. If your X amp shines with a certain type or brand that is super cool but rarely applicable or to be repeated with the exact same qualities for different alltogether amps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members teemuk Posted August 20, 2012 Members Share Posted August 20, 2012 I base my assessment on my Univalve use. You mean an amp that does nothing to compensate impedance mismatches when different tubes are used, neither to properly bias the said tubes. :poke: Yeah, that's a pretty good basis for assessment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members iff Posted August 20, 2012 Members Share Posted August 20, 2012 So, a VTM modded to use KT88s will kill people? Cause seriously, that amp brings volume like pretty much nothing else. (Is sure other amps do, but holy crap who knew 4 power tubes could bring volume like they do!) I had my Deliverance 120 (4 KT88s) up at noon on the volume the other day...it was pretty loud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members peavey_impact Posted August 20, 2012 Members Share Posted August 20, 2012 To add to this, how do KT88's or 6550's compare to the others? Those are two types I've yet to use, but I might be soon. I've used both in my Deliverance 60....to be completely honest they sound damn near identical to me (in my amp, at least) I've owned at least one amp that ran each of the more popular tubes (6v6, el84, el34, 6L6, kt88, 6550) and of those my favorites have been the 6l6, el34, kt88/6550 amps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members CME Posted August 20, 2012 Members Share Posted August 20, 2012 As mentioned it really all depends on the rest of the amp. When I was doing some research on new tubes for me Dual Recto years ago I found a chart that seemed to explain what I heard when swapping tubes. 6L6's seem to have the upper mids a bit scooped out, while EL34's have the lower mids scooped out. This is why EL34's seem to cut better while 6L6's can sound bigger and bolder. However in a circuit tweaked for them both can sound great. 6V6's and EL84's are just lower powered versions with similar tones. They will just break up earlier. All that said different brands of the same style tube (6L6 for example) can vary in sound as much as the different types (EL34 vs 6L6). FWIW I ended up putting KT66's in my Dual Recto. They have less mid scoop than either the 6L6 or EL34 and kind of give you the best of both worlds. Anywho happy tube hunting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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