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Preamp or power tube distortion?


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Originally posted by JohnRageOn

IMHO these are the most common tubes and to my ears sound like this:


EL84 - Lower wattage, breaks up early, mid ranged mostly.

EL34 - Standard wattage, pronounced mids, bites as hell, generally musical tube, definition of British sound.

6L6 - Standard wattage, pronounced bass and highs, very open sounding, less compressed, definition of American sound.

KT88 - High wattage, great headroom, full and clean tube.

 

 

very good description. you ever used KT77 or E34Ls? Wondering how those compare since i've never used these two

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Originally posted by stangme01

very good description. you ever used KT77 or E34Ls? Wondering how those compare since i've never used these two

 

 

Unfortunately I've never used KT77, but I've heard an amp with EL34L but I didn't like this amp so I cannot make a judgment, but they must be similar to EL34.

There's a trend putting KT77 on SLOs for some reason and they say the tube shares sonic characteristics from EL34 and 6L6, who knows. I would like to give them a try in the future.

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Originally posted by IcedEarthian

so maxing out the chan vol is basically maxing out preamp disto?

 

 

thats power amp, preamp is usually the "gain" knob, but both are techincally gain and volume knobs, one acts on the pre one on the power.

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Originally posted by IcedEarthian

does the same rule apply for master vol?

 

 

Yup. Power amp distortion requires a loud volume period. Cranked up master volume AND any separate preamp volumes (not preamp gain) the amp may have, not just one or the other. Testing London Power power scaling soon...

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  • 10 months later...
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Oh alrite.


Still seems kind of complicated. I hope my fuses don't blow.

 

 

It's like changing a light bulb.

 

If you put a 5w bulb into a socket that held a 60w bulb, it's gonna blow.

 

Otherwise, unscrew, screw, turn on.

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People use less power tube distorsion than they think, especially Marshall owners
:cool:

I like some power amp distorsion. On my 1959-SLP, most of the distorsion I get comes from the preamp


E-

:D Exactly.

Most people with 50 - 100 watters probably never get anywhere near power tube distortion. Although many think so :D

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  • 1 year later...
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It is my understanding that preamp distortion comes from turning up the "volume" and keeping the "master volume" down low. Preamp distortion can be as quiet as you want depending on where the master volume is. Power tube distortion comes from cranking the amp up loud to the point where the power tubes break up. Am I understanding this correctly? I have a Fender Blues Junior Tweed NOS by the way.

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