Ceriatone Forum

hi all can anyone tell me what valves you guys are using / recomend with an OTS .any info on vavles would be great.

Hey man

Right now Im running all NOS or Almost NOS

V1 GE 12ax7
V2 Sylvania 12ax7
V3 philips JAN 12ax7

V4&5 Sylvania 6l6GC ANOS

none are the infamous blackplates, which I have yet to try

Sounds great but there are many good combinations depending on price range

What are you using now?

Todd

It sounds much better with these than it did will all new production JJ's

In Bluesmaster, #102 (RF) and #183

V1: NOS GE 12ax7 JAN (or JJ ECC83s if you want a cheaper alternative)
V2: do
V3: Sovtek 12ax7 LPS

V4 & V5: winged C 6L6 / Winged C EL34B

In my 50w HRM with LNFB switch, a pretty esoteric mixture:  (I'm a tube collector)

V1 Adzam 12ax7s,
V2 Blackburn Microtech e813cc,
PI Philips MIniwatt shortplate,
power tubes RFT el34's,

C-lator Telefunken ribbed plate ecc83.

I have a Bluesmaster and I'm using ANOS GE 12AX7 long plates in V1 and V2 and a Mullard CV4024 in V3. I use either TAD 6L6WGC's or JAN Phillips 6L6WGB's in V4 and V5

I use a 7025 (low noise 12AX7) in the C-Lator

I guess I'll post my humble set of all regular production tubes.

Preamp tubes are all Tung Sol RI 12AX7
Power Amp= TAD 6L6 WGC STR

They sound great with my HRM 50.

Keep them coming guys!!! Good stuff!

What's the best (good selection and reasonable) US online suppliers of quality tubes?

@soundperf...

I'd be willing to bet that lots of the youtube "OTS family" of amp clips are coming from amps that use new production tubes...    Those tones are what prompted me to get my HRM 50!  If it works, is reliable, and you as well as others like the tones, well WTF is wrong with that???  Nothing!  

For my amp I selected each tube specifically for each position, each had to compete against many other choices, each won their little individual "tone contests" for a given position, and none of them are immune to being kicked out of their special spot if I roll something else for that particular position and I end up liking my personal tones better as a result. When the basic tones slightly changed after new amp burn in, I started rolling and swapping out.  The only tube left from the original tube mix a few months ago is the tube in the c=lator.  But that's what happens when you have slowly built up a hoard of more than a hundred vintage tubes to play with...

The only tones I ever chase are the ones I wish for myself about. And that often changes when I play in a mix with other instruments playing out, it's the mix tones which have the highest priority for me.

To each his own, and I've yet to discover a greater possibility of more varieties in tone palettes than within the OTS family of amps, hats off to the big guy and those online amp building fanatics, their "mad scientist" projects, the sharing of info and results, and the equally fanatical commercial amp builders who took things from his wonderful foundations of amp designs and made things better for so many guitarists, rich and not so rich, but all picky about what they want.

Now to really open up the worm can it would be fun to hear why certain tubes were chosen for each position from those posting here.  I'm gonna wait until this thread gets bigger before I toss in my one penny's worth of reasons for my selections.

Peace.

While I was building my BM 50w there was a very detailed thread on tube selection. A lot of detail was thrown around about the relative merits of various esoteric and hard to find tubes in the various spots in these amps. But when it came time to buy some tubes for my amp, I just went down to the closest music store (which happens to be a really great one) and bought some brand new tungsol 12ax7's and a matched pair of JJ 6L6GCs. And they sound fantastic! While I'm pretty sure if I started messing with a good sized collection of older tubes I'd probably find stuff i liked better, for the moment I'm happy.

And I may get some impetus to experiment soon - I have a mesa boogie mark iv on the way here, and I gather it may need new tubes. May be time for some mixing up!

I agree! Mine sounded awesome with JJ's and Sovteks, I just like a lil warmer sound, which is why I swapped out for what I have now. There are probably literally hundreds of OTS amps running new production or non boutique tubes that sound fantastic! What it comes down to is finding what YOU like, if that comes from "cheap" tubes, so be it. :)

Well, I intentional use new production tubes in my amps only... I have two big reasons for it...

1.) Currently own 5 amps, if I would use NOS tubes for all of them I would become insolvent  ;D
2.) Once I settle on the tubes I usually mod the amp to suit me best... if I would do this with some rare NOS tubes, I would mod my amps quite often. With easy to get new production tubes this is not a problem.

These are my choices lately (nothin but NOS all around :) :

 For the standard HRM I dig: RCA short grey plate 12ax7a's for V1 & V2, Long Plate Raytheon's for the PI.

 For the Bluesmaster circuit: Amperex (Short Plate) Ecc83's in V1 & V2, Long Plate Raytheon's in the PI

 NON-HRM
(183) GE (JAN) 12AX7wa's in V1 & V2, & V3
(Ojai) RCA (short Plates) 12ax7a's in V1, V2, Telefunkin Halo getter's in the PI

Amperex (short plate's ONLY) in the Dumbleator ( even if you don't want to spend the $ on NOS for your amp, they make a huge difference in this position)

New production:

--C-- 's or Ruby's for the Power amp whether it be an EL34 or 6L6.


NOS preamp tubes can be found at a decent price, I highly recommend them, IHMO they do sound better.

Telefunkin's are very bright and Sound great in the Bluesmaster V1 & V2 also



If you want to get new production preamp tubes here's what I'd get:

 Mullard Ecc83's (New Sensor)
 Sovtek 12ax7wa's are ok too

 Tung-Sol 12ax7's are garbage IMHO (I got 50 of these before and ended up with 10 that sounded & tested strong, when they are good they sound great though, they do have a history of failing too)

How long ago did you purchase these tubes? Also, where did you buy them? I think I remember reading this was the case a while ago, but the quality control has improved. That's a bunch of bad tubes.

I will probably look into trying different preamp tubes sooner than later, especially in the PI. I'm sort of in the same camp as "mcinku". For me good guitar tone is so elusive, that when I find it, I don't want to quickly mess with it. Having said this, I'm rather certain if I had a bunch of NOS tubes to experiment with, I would.  ;)

,really good to hear all your choices , mine has tung sol 6L6 gc and a mixture of pre amp valves two have no markings at all and the last is a edicron ,what do you guys recon ? change em all ?,only just got the amp and it's my first ceriatone ,so i'll be asking lots of questions ,am willing to spend on decent valves ,just which ones? ,i like the tone smooth ,not too bright ,all ideas welcome..ps my tung sols arn't like normal size 6l6 [say jj's ] they seem to be bigger like big bottle kt66's if you get me,,says tung sol made in russia 07 07 ?? any good or shall i bin em.  pps has anyone tried a 12 AY7[lower gain] valve in v2 if so what was it like?..

 It was last year actually so it's quite possible. Mullard Ecc83's are my favorite out of any new production tubes though.  they're a little bit more $ but worth it IMHO.

I have a new chinese made Golden Dragon 12AX7/ECC83 in V1. (in my 50W OTS)
Best tube I've ever heard, and I've tried a lot different brands.
I tested it in V2 as well, but couldn't hear any sonic difference
to my other tubes.

But, highly recommended in V1  :)

Nahhhhhh! Can't be! It's Chinese. it's in Asia!

(this is tongue in cheek).

Recently took delivery of a Marsh fsx-50 Overlord, an OTS built with Ceriatone boards in the US with Mercury and Heyboer iron.    I tried a pair of Sylvania 6bg6ga tubes with adapters in it.  They are not coming out!  That tube type is a secret weapon.  Before sticking those in I tried a pair of JAN Philips 7581a's, the Syl 6bg6ga's have the same guts in them, and are found at a fraction of the price of vintage 6l6gc's...you may need to buy a few in order to get a closely matched pair, but they are worth the effort to get, they are wonderful sounding. 

FWIW...

@ mcinku


Sez the tiny mouse to a real lion of tone...after much forethought and thankful patience in time, waiting for others here to post, ...................................................................

;~)

Respect to you first of all...

...Beg to politely disagree about the need to tweak circuits of a particular amp after subbing so called NOS tubes... also your opinion about un-aford-ability of same...true NOS is unwelcome, they need to be broken in at least to offer their best, just like burning in amp parts, then they aren't NOS anymore.  VOS (vintage old stock) far better IMO.  Stick them in and listen, if you don't like lots, yank and sub again, just like certain parts for certain places, like tone caps and resistor types for instance.

Umm,

Have read in Merlin's book (yep, I bought it and am glad) and yep, it's more than a bit above my admittedly tiny but tone oriented brain to digest... the idea in his pages about (paraphrasing) tube rolling  not very important compared to circuit design and measurement of actual voltages/currents in circuit,

well, yep, up to a certain point, and then...

I disagree, strongly. 

Selecting certain vintage tubes for certain roles in exquisitively fabricated circuits is the other side, like the frosting within and upon a fantastically prepared layer cake for a special and wonderful wedding of tone, a small part of the whole production, just like a wedding...which can be compared to a Dumble type circuit as...

the sacred or not so...act of playing elecrtric guitar, as if on stage, whether for one in you home or an audience of millions.   Hope that guitar is well set up and the rest of the chain is deserving of that amp!

Am I right in my assumption that that you know where to get the very "Holy Grail" amp building components that you and a few score of others on this planet desire and know about to derive awesome tones for a given circuit?  That knowledge HAD to come from EXTENSIVE research and practice, that is after all, the real guts of science even if derived from not perfectly executed scientific protocol, right?

Well, how about the idea that the vintage old stock (NOT brand spanking new!) tubes chosen for certain spots within those exquisite circuits are helping to build that special wedding cake?  And that there are general tendencies for those tubes to behave within certain circuit environments just like those chosen components tend to do as well?

They can be found, easily.  But it also takes time, some money, and personal experiences to build up the synergy between well chosen tobes, well chosen parts, lead dress and circuit measurements, to help build that cake of tone.

They are affordable, period.    But getting to that affordable place takes lots of experiences and research, and yes spending money for better and worse, another inexact science fo sho.

Yep, the worm can has been spilled, for intention of good.  mcinku, i welcome PM or public discourse.  You are a hero for all here, also to me IMHO.

Peace.

I have no problem with your opinion... non at all.

Just to explain my need to tweak the amps... I usually build an amp and normally just use JJ tubes or something like that. After a while, when I get to know the amp... after a few gigs and after I'm sure the amp had a good "burn in"....then in some cases (not always) I might decide to change a cap or a pot here and there... I don't know, let say to reduce the bass or tame hi-end, whatever...
I also have an access to some private stock NOS tubes and I tried some in my time... for example once I tried Ei in V1 (I even bought one) and the clean side of my OTS was just wonderful but on the other hand the OD was not working at all, so I would have to mod the amp to get what I want if I would end up with that tube. Ok, that Ei was not that expensive but still I ended up with my JJ in V1 at the end... and guess what, I get compliments about my tone every time.
At the end of the day far more important that my tone, is the playing... but to play well, the tone needs to inspire you, right... and that's my goal. When the amp is doing that to me, than I'm done... no more tube swapping or mods.
...and if I want to try something else (which happens a lot)... I have four more amps to occupy me.
 ;)

I think I share Mckinku's approach
This will depend on your personal situation, i.e. how many amps you have, and how much you enjoy tweaking amps.
At my current stage, money to buy amps is not a struggle, so I have 15 now (sorry, I was playing 7 years before I got my first valve amp, so it's only fair)
When you have a few, you try to tweak each one to make it suit you, once I find the most inspiring tone, after trying the valves I have in stock, I leave it alone, or I buy some more to try. For me, often the change involves using a lower gain valve here or there. Sometimes a valve sounds rubbish in one amp or one position in the amp.

For amps that do not bring me joy, I move them on to someone else - I give up trying different valves in them.
I can see that someone might choose to tweak a favourite amp to a finer level with rare vintage valves, but to me it's about having an instrument (amp+guitar) that inspires and takes me somewhere else, so when I get to that point, I play.
I know some carry around different valve sets for different gigs, but for me, each amp has its own character, which you can  temper a little with different valve types, but I think the amp type, valve type, guitar and pickups offer enough variation for me, although I can see that finer-tuning with NOS would offer some more options, I believe that for me, plugging in a different guitar will offer more still

None of this is meant as a criticism, I want to know what each of my amps can deliver, tune that a little if needed (in a repeatable way), and then play. I can see that a little extra can be achieved with extensive trials with different tubes, but once the amp is inspirational, that's mission accomplished for me and being able to repeat it is attractive, so I too usually stick to new valves (although I do have a few old EF86s and 5751s)

Cheers
Tone

Got a used Bluesmaster HRM 100w a few weeks ago- it came with Tungsol ri power tubes- 2 of which redplated and died within a week of getting the amp.  The preamp tubes (JJ 12ax7's) were kind of noisey as well- .  It sounded fine (when it wasn't noisy), but I gig and am always concerned about the reliability of new tubes- they don't seem to last and tend to die at the most inconvienient times.  In all fairness, I have no idea how much time was on the tubes as the amp was used.  The amp was also biased really cold, but that is no guarantee that the tubes weren't abused at some point.

So I reached into my stash of good stuff and retubed with Philips 7581a's and Jan/Philips 12ax7's.  Hopefully, these'll last a long time. 

I have to update mine a bit. I swapped JJ's into V1 & V2 and moved one of the GE Long Plate 12AX7's in to the PI Spot in my Bluesmaster. Marked improvement in tone, surprisingly enough. It seems the old Long Plates were a little to warm and dark for the Bluesmaster Circuit. I may try some Telefunkin's or GE Short Plates in there at some point to see how they compare, but at this point, I am thoroughly surprised by the JJ's, so much so that I swapped the Weber 1265's back in, and fell in love with them again! I still run either TAD 6L6WGC's or JAN Phillips 6L6WGB's, depending on what kind of mood I'm in...

Went on a tube buying binge last week on eBay.  Picked up 3 pairs of true NOS 6bg6ga's, one pair of Sylvania, about 21 bucks including shipping, they are 3mv apart for matching, a pair of GE 6bg6ga blackplates for 22 bucks shipped, they are less than 1mv apart, and a yet to arrive pair of 6bg6ga GE blackplates for about 13 bucks delivered.   The Sylvanias have the 7581a's guts, the GE's plates were pretty beefy looking as well, in my Marsh 50w OTS type the GE's were a bit smoother than the Syl's, but the Syl's sounded their best when I biased them up a bit on the hot side, between 40-45mv...they seem to be able to run a bit hot, and for that kind of price, which is less than a pair of new production 6l6gc tubes I don't worry about slightly reduced life.  Will be getting a pair of Pearl tube coolers for them, which undoubtably will greatly help longevity.   The 6l6/6bg6ga adaptors I got from ayumitubes on ebay came apart when removing the tubes, so I reglued them with a generous, carefully applied gel type CA glue and they are staying together now. 

@ PVB, for that Blues Master circuit, I'd try a lightly used shortplate Amperex Bugle Boy or Philips Miniwatt, with the right trangle etch in V1, followed by an RFT 12ax7 in V2.  Another strong shortplate Amperex or possibly Siemens in the PI will yield a very sweet, harmonically rich tone set.

@ mcinku, I tried a Philips ecg labeled long smooth grayplate EI in V1 in my OTS with similar results as yours, I yanked it out.  The Canadian version of shortplate Amperex, Electrohome 12ax7, is wonderful sounding and dead quiet for microphonics.   That is my current V1.

@ tone, sometimes I'll roll tubes for a particular guitar or speaker cab!  Don't have as many amps as you, but have 7 or 8 great ones, mostly heads.  Liked your post, reasonates with my experiences.

Vintage old stock tubes and in the case of the power tubes, can be affordable, and very nice sounding.  I have read that HAD favored the Sylvania 6l6gc and 7581a's as well as the GE short grayplate 12ax7a/7025.  I like the Siemens shortplates or aforementioned Amperexes better, they are more harmonically rich and not as bloated on the bottom end.  The Siemens can get a bit spendy.

@212 I,ve been keeping my eyes out for Amperex Bugle Boys for a while now, just never seem to have the money when they come up, darn the luck. I am quite pleased and still surprised by how good the JJ's sound in there. I never would have believed it.

PVB,

keep the faith and surf eBay daily.  Look for auctions that close midweek, mornings, or other odd times.  Sunday evenings yield the highest prices for tube sellers.  Memorize the RFT mica and plate structure and getter deposit shape, they are found with many different brand labels.  The ones with the orange Amperex globe label and fat bottle are bulletproof for microphonics and IMHO the most desirable.  I have one with the Realistic Lifetime label with gold pins, although it has the normal bottle width. 

The Amperex and Philips Miniwatt types will last longer than the most recent JJ's.  They are more harmonically rich.  Look for that right triangle etch low on the bottle side, signifies that they were made in Heerlen, Holland.

 

I just ordered two ANOS Telefunken ECC83s with ribbed plates from Mike at KCA, we'll see how they sound! If they sound good i may pick up a few more, if they are still available. I wish i had a bit more knowledge so i could change out the tone stack components to shape my tone, but i don't, so i am and always have been an old school tube swapper  ;D i'll let ya'll know how it goes!

Gregg

Those ribbed plate 'funkens are a bit brighter and to my ears more desirable for guitar amp use than the smooth plates.  When you put them in a high gain situation, they will deliver a nice, violin-like compressed, smooth sustain.  Good for V2, PI (if decently balanced between the triodes), have one right now in my C-lator.  Sure hope you like them.  One stupid amp trick I found out, when you socket the pair power tubes in a 50 watter, swap them side for side, one way will give slightly more sustain than the other.

Earlier this week i did some voltage testing with various preamp tubes i the HRM Bypassed Bluesmaster which i will post tomorrow after i finish the last round of testining. I also did some twiddling and fiddling with bias on the power tubes and found that the ideal bias for my rig running the TAD 6L6WGC-STR's at 445 volts is 36.6 mA. Very balanced at that setting, and no farty bass and no honkiness. Seems that these tubes like to be run a lil cooler than 70% to sound their best. I also found that my PI trimmer sounds best with between a 7-8 volt swing between V3a and V3b much more bloom and sustain. very cool. I was very happy. I was running my GE Long Plate in V1, A JJ in V2, and a GT12AX7R (Basically a higher grade sovtek 12AX7WA) in PI and all was right with the world.

And then today...

I installed a ribbed Telefunken in V1 and a JAN GE 5751 in V2 and did some noodling this morning. All i can say is wow! The sound coming out of this thing on the clean channel is amazing now! Much brighter, but that's not all, much more balanced, detailed and focused throughout the frequency range. The highs and upper mids are so much more present i can back the treble and prescence controls back and still have some shimmer, and that's with my dark les paul!

The 5751 in V2 helps with the volume jump caused by bypassing the HRM circuit and also smooths out the OD even further (Bypassing the HRM smooths it out alot). It rounds the tone out quite a bit and just really offers a nice balanced OD tone whether in standard OD, PAB, Mega PAB, or using a Boosta Grande or other clean boost. It makes the amp very very versatile and I can highly recommend the Telefunken for V1 for BM amps, and the combo of the Telefunken in V1 and JAN GE 5751 in V2 for those who have bypassed their HRM tonestack.

I will do some further playing this weekend to get some more impressions, but my intial impressions (harmony central style ;) )  are very positive!!

Saaaaweeeeet!  Glad to hear you are enjoying the vintage old stock goodness.  I'm gonna sit and soak in a hot bathtub, listen to some blues, have a couple brews and when I get out am gonna play through those new hemp cones some more.  Man, they really suit the singing bloom of the D-style tones!

I've had my (self built) OTS for a few months now.  Originally put in MESA power tubes 'cause they were about the cheapest.  Figured they'd be good enough for the break-in period.
The amp sounded pretty good, but not as good as the UTube samples that persuaded me to buy it.

The other day, I bought some JJ's as I needed a set for backup.   Put the JJ's in, and WOW!
They were only $5 or so more than the MESA's but now the amp's sounding great.
With the MESA's, when playing distorted chords, it got downright ugly at times - harsh, lots of odd harmonics.  With the JJ's, I instantly noticed the tone was much thicker and smoother. Now those distorted chords ring like they're supposed to.
Maybe with some esoteric NOS/VOS tubes it might get even better, but for now I'm quite happy.

I have to agree with those who say this amp is like no other.  If you have one and aren't happy with the tone, stick with it and try some different tubes or mods or speakers.  You'll most likely eventually get what your looking for.  Its taken me months of gigging and tweaking to get myself into the ballpark. Don't give up!

The JJ's ain't bad. They are my 2nd favorite in V2, FWIW

Gregg

I did some tube rolling on while i was stuck at home last week.(had the flu and work forbids me to go if i have it) After two solid days i came to realize that the Telefunken ribbed plate in V1 was almost too good. It was very "hi-fi" for lack of a better word and too bright. The JJ in V2 was very nice on lead sections but a bit too chunky on rhythm parts. The TAD 6L6WGC-STR's were a bit too loose in the bass and bit too scooped. The Tung-Sol 6L6GC reissues were ok, but a little to intense in the Low end.

It was beginning to sound like Goldilocks

I pulled the Telefunken out of V1 and put the ANOS GE Long Plate 12AX7 back in, pulled the JJ out of V2 and put the JAN GE 5751 back in, and put a new set of JAN Phillips 6L6WGB's in V4 & V5 (the JAN 6L6WGB's i had before were the last of a stash i had bought a few years ago and ran biased very hot in the BM for the heck of it for two weeks and could never get to bias low enough to run properly again at full B+ voltage). I biased to 70%, set the OD trim to 1 o'clock and wowsers. I think i found the magic bullet for HRM Bypassed Bluesmasters.

Clean sounds can range from Tweed Bassman/Early Marshall cleans to as it was designed to be, or Blackface cleans if you lower the mids down to about 9 o' clock or even cut them out completely. They are very nice and warm and bright without being muddy or brittle. Very Nice. Turn the preamp up to 8 or higher on the clean side, turn up the clean master and you will have a fat natural overdrive sound that is full and nasty! (in a good way)

OD sounds are unreal. It can range from sounded like a cranked tweed deluxe, cranked blackface bassman, a boosted blackface deluxe, to total hot rodded fender deluxe overdriven, to chunky Plexi depending on how you set the Drive, OD Trim and work your guitars controls. The 5751 seems to shape the tone in a way that the 12AX7 doesn't, making the lows less flabby, the mids nice and fat, and trims just enough highs to make it not overly bright. I have taken my Tube Screamer and Fulltone out of my chain and just keep my Fuzz pedals in the chain now if i decide i want more of a fuzz sound than a straight OD sound.

Of course, the HRM tonestack can do this as well, but it does make it sound more like a Hot Rodded Marshall Plexi (to me) than a Hot Fender, and the tone difference from clean to drive was just too much for me. Plus, the clean and OD channels sound more identical since they are using the same tone stack, and the PAB can be used as an boost instead of just bypassing the main tonestack so that the HRM stack is the only stack in use, which is the only way to really use the HRM stack properly (both tonestacks=Mud)

So there ya go. My .02 cents on how to get some rockin tones from an HRM Bypassed Bluesmaster.I think my tweaking days are over for now on this amp. All i need now is a way to record some soundclips, which i have been dying to do for a while now.

Hope this helps!

Gregg