Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

Shredd,

I moved preamp tubes around in my Triple Rec and found a great combination that I like the sound of. I lost all that fizzyness that they seem to have.

I just got a Roadster and with the tubes Ive got I cant seem to get rid of the high fizzyness. I wanted to know where you found your Tesla Ecc83 tubes and what brand they were.

I had a couple of old Ecc83s and put one in V-1 on the Roadster, it calmed it down some, but Im still not happy with the highs on the clean channel. When I go to the vintage or modern channel I dont hear it, just on the clean channel.

Thanks JW

I probably wont get back on here til monday morning, got a little gig tonite sat and a recording session sun for a friends demo tape.

It looks like Tubemonger and ebay are going to be your best bet so far. Teslas are few and far between to come across these days, so if you can, pick up a pair.

These are more of the standard grade Teslas;
http://www.tubemonger.com/TESLA_NOS_Foi ... _p/724.htm

They're Czec made. And they should do the trick.

These are more of a premium grade:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=003

They're also Czec made. But notice the frame structure inside the tube, and the gold pins for better connection.

These are more of a Holy-Grail type.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=025

East German made with Telefunken tooling, but the price starts to get steep. Same A-frame though. (Telefunken never made tubes with Gold pins),

Anyway, on a second note, if you don't already have one, you might want to grab a Mullard for your V2. From what I understand, each side of the triode in a Roadster is used for a different function (in a Roadster, that means 12-different functions).
Your V2 utilizes 1/2 for your 3rd gain stage for ch. 1&2, and the other half is for your 3rd gain stage for ch. 3&4. So you want a really clean sounding tube in that slot. Nothing beats a Mullard for that.

Same with V3. One side of the triode is a stack driver, the other side is 4th gain stage for ch. 3&4.

You might want to shoot for this:

V1 Tesla
V2 Mullard ecc83
V3 Mullard ecc83

The Tesla/ Mullard combination is a freakin Godsend of a sound.

Man where did you get all this info! You got to be making this sh*t up as you go along.

Hahaha.. Sanshouheil, like I said, one of these days I'll tell you the story about what started this mess.. Well this is the day. But I'm gonna post it in the general chat forum. Not very many people visit this part of the forum, and if I'm gonna write a long post, I want it read damnit!!

Thanks Shredd, I'll go with your advice on this.

Tesla and 2 Mullards

Hey Shredd Im still trying to find some reasonable priced Tesla and Mullard tubes, have you got any recomendations?

It's easier to find deals on Mullards than Teslas.

Ebay is where you'll find the best deals. If you want to save some cash, look for re-labeled tubes like this.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1956-NOS-NIB-Mullar ... .m14.l1318

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pair-of-Westinghous ... .m14.l1318

Those are real Mullards, not G.E. and Westinghouse. Collectors don't care for them all that much. And people who have amps where you can see the tubes don't bite on them very much either ,and it's just because of the re-labeling. But you're just going to put it in an amp where the sight of it means nothing, so that's where you find the best deals.

As far as the Teslas.. Good luck. They're scarce, so the demand sets the price. You just have to bite the bullet when it comes to the Teslas. They're usually between $40-$80 per tube depending on what it is.

Yes the few Teslas I found were way up there in price.

SOme guy somewhere I was looking around claimed that JJ made a tube that mimcs the Tesla.

I went back into my Triple and the V1 tube I put in there was an old GE I had laying around. Im a packrat and have kept a lot of tubes thru the years. It seemed to really calm down the fizzyness in the Triple.

I wound up leaving the Roadster at a Rehearsal room and wont see it again for a week, so I dont know when Ill get a chance to play with it again.

Thanks Im going to keep looking and try to get some deals instead of paying up.

JW..

Didn't you say a while back that you like a little breakup in your clean channel?

If so, you might want to think about an RFT. They break up early, and sound killer. I got a killer tone out of it in my DR, but I like my cleans crystal clean, so I use the Tesla. The RFT doesn't quite have the highs of the Tesla either.


Here's a good website to read up on:

http://www.guitaramplifierblueprinting.com/12ax7.html

Scroll down to the purple section, and you'll get an idea about what these particular people think. The only thing that bothers me about it is.. They didn't test an RCA for some reason. I have no idea how you could keep RCA out of a test like this. It would have scored high for sure.

The JJ ecc83 got a pretty good review, but not anything astronomical. Mullard cleaned house. I can personally attest to what they had to say about Mullards. Everyone should have at least one in their amp somewhere. They add a lot of clarity to your sound.

Shredd,

Yea I like to set my clean channel to where I can roll off the guitar volume and clean it up, then when I punch it with guitar volume it has a little breakup. Kind of a Black Face or Twin sound with just a hint of distortion. I use Classic series Les Pauls which have a real high output pickup, I think they are 15 ohm, which really punches the front end of an amp.

Like I said, I have my Triple happening. I played on it a couple of hours last night. Im not sure what GE I have in there, some of the print is gone, it just says 12ax on it, so Im not sure what it is, and as Im finding out a lot of these tubes just have someone elses names on them anyway. If I get a chance I may put it in the Roadster when I get it back home and see if it calms things down. Ive got the GE in V1, a Mesa in V2, and a Sovtek in V3, everything else is Mesa. But Im happy with it. The fizzyness is gone at all volume levels, and my vintage and modern settings sound good to my ears. I just punch in the ole TS-9 for a little sparkle on the leads.

The Roadster is a whole other story. The V1 is kind of hidden behind the transformer, I had a Telefunken Ecc83 that I found at a friends house and when I tryed to put the metal cover on it I broke the tip off the tube. That could have been my Holy Grail tube and I broke it, I guess I will never know. A friend has a Marshall and I was talking to him and he just moved tubes around and claims to have gotten a better sound than what he had.

A side question, does it matter if I leave the metal covers off my preamp tubes. Im a bit paranoid after breaking that tube. The other night practicing I left the first 3 covers off the Roadster and couldnt tell the difference.

Anyway thanks for the info

The quest continues................

Wow JW!!

Check out that GE labeled Mullard now!! There's something about it that people want. It's up to $75 now. There must be something about the code or the year that makes it something special. I've never seen a re-labeled Mullard go that high.

Damnit!! Now I gotta find out why. I learn a lot just by following a buzz like that. When I see something like that happen, that's part of how I study. It's obvious the tube collectors and vendors are fighting for it for a reason. One of the pictures is showing a double thick mica spacer at the top. That would make it very low in microphonics, and it may be a rare design for a Mullard. The ebay tube community is no joke. They know what's up.

The shields over the preamp tubes are there to cut down on vibration, microphonics, and keep them cool. It's fine to take them off technically. But I would suggest that you buy some dampers to compensate. I've actually never heard of that happening JW.. I put a 12bz7 in my V1 once, and it's 1/2" taller than a 12ax7. The shields must be coming smaller these days. It might be possible to find some taller caps for them. I'll check that out for you.

But if not, you can get dampers here.

http://cgi.ebay.com/8-TUBE-AMP-PREAMP-D ... .m14.l1318

I think combo amps should have these on all of the power tubes if it's possible.. They tend to vibrate quite a bit.

Shredd, Im getting a little frustrated with the e-bay tube community. Ive missed on 3 sets of Tesla's. It always happens at the last second somebody jumps in and grabs them at the end and I dont have time to rebid. Kinda frustrating. I got a couple of cheap Mullards, but I dont know about the Teslas, I may try to find something different. Have you used Eurotubes at all and what do you know about the JJ tubes they handle. I called a guy there and he seemed to know what he was talking about and also seemed to want to help with no pressure. He said he would match up some preamp tubes for me. Im going to think about it cause I can get a whole set from him for what a couple of Teslas will run. I still want to get the Roadster happening, Im probably going to leave the Triple alone.

jw.... Do NOT buy into that crap. Please. Those kits suck.

There shouldn't be any need for you to look for a V1 anymore. If you're the one who won the Westinghouse tubes, then the one with the tilted halo getter (on the right) is an Amperex. They're very well known to have plenty of high end. Put it in your V1, you should be good to go.

That auction was a score and a half!!

Shredd 6, I got my tubes in. Hopefully I will get the GEs in the Roadster in the next few days and see what it does for the sound.

JW.. If you want to post a picture of the GEs, I should be able to tell you more about them. All I have to do is look at the codes, etchings, and the tubes themselves.

You're gonna be one happy dude when you plug in your new tubes. Let me know what you think ok.

By the way.. There's a Tesla listed right now.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=017

Pretty rare to see someone selling just 1..