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6BQ5's that hold up in combo amps??? Any suggestions?

PostPosted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 5:03 pm
by crispycircuit
I've tried JJ's from Euro Tube. They were matched very nice and worked good for 6 months. However they quickly became loose inside the glass envelope and now rattle and make weird noises. Are the Russian any better? or other brands? I'm not sure what to buy??? I'd like my guitar amp repairs to last longer than 6 months! ..... Thx

PostPosted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 6:43 pm
by cartoonweirdo
I have had great luck with sovtek, but was using stock I purchased in bulk five or six years ago. They were all going into Vox product, and both the new Vox (made by Marshall, and a sight more roadworthy the originals at that), and vintage Vox (JMI that is) did well. I did, however have to sort through many sets to make the amps sound good. Sets that worked well in some amps sounded really bad in others and vice versa. At the time I had a lot of sets (hundreds), so this wasn't a problem for me. Overall I had very few tubes that sounded bad in all amps. More recently I have retubed with E/H (also russian) and had no complaints.

That's all I know, hope it helps
Carl

PostPosted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 6:50 pm
by TerrySmith
The Russian 6BQ5 / EL84 / 6P14P is a very rugged tube, and cheap too.

PostPosted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:37 pm
by nyazzip
any specific models or brands of amps, or just combos in general?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:25 am
by crispycircuit
Combos in general with the speaker inches from the tubes just rek hell on them. This amp is a Peavey Classic 30, 30 watts from 4 6BQ5s. I worked on several of these and really don't like them. They use 3 seperate circut boards. They jumper the 3 together with solid core wire and fold them into a U shape to fit in the chassis. Well the jumpers break fairly easy and to work on the boards you HAVE to remove them. It's a crappy design and no fun to work on. Anyway, I do repairs on amps for some pocket change and having them come back with bad set of tubes in 6 months is NOT making me look to good.... So Terry, thx for the reply. Where do get these tubes and are they matched?? I gotta try something different.... Do they pull more current (need different bias voltage)? And do they dissipate more wattage???