need 6V6 recommendations

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I360UP
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Post by I360UP »

Got both the the TS6V6 and the JJs. It may be the set I have but the TS are a little warmer than the JJS, but, the JJs seem to have a little more defined tone. I've got a single channel AB763, 6V6Plexi and both of seem to keep getting the JJs put back in them. I love the why they break up. My 5E3 has old stock in it.

YMMV
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BooBird
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Post by BooBird »

Porge, JAN stands for (Joint Army Navy}, They did'nt make tube's, these are tube's that were bought for the military and stamped JAN, now for the good news, all military tube's were normally of a better grade and quality than your store bought tube's, some were called 4 star tube's !
tube manufactor's back in the old day's could have got an order from our military for 10,000 6L6's and on hand at the factory would only have maybe 2,000 of thier tube's in stock, they would call G.E. or RCA and buy 8,000 un branded tube's, then they would put thier name on the other manufactor's tube, this sorta made it confusing to figure out who's tube's we would be describing, the reason for a company having a shortage was mostly due to the tooling up process, most old tube company's would tool up for say a 12AX7 and run that tube for a year before retooling for another tube, it must have been quite a drug out process switching over to another size tube !
at one time in my life i owned 450 K of these old military tube's, I can tell you this much, in thirty or so year's of messing with tube amps, the tube is one of the most important part's of finding your tone, try all the brand's you can afford to own, and alway's let your ear's decide what sound's best, and last but not least, how long can you run the tube ? I have 60 yr old tube's running in A class that i would'nt take love or money for, the old tube's are getting very hard to come by now, and are getting very expensive, i have been useing some of the newer tube's as of lately, some sound A.O.K., Some don't !
We are in a time where you gotta go with what you can get !
And if you love tube's like i do, be glad we can still buy a new tube, they tol us 30 yr's ago that there would be no tube's after the turn of the century !
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morcey2
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Post by morcey2 »

BooBird wrote: Image
Boo
Just looking at the picture, I only have one thing to say. I hate you. With the passion of a thousand "Where's Waldo" characters. :wink: Speaking of which, you ought to lay those out in a random pattern, take a couple of overhead pictures and call it "Where's the I65-code, incorrectly-labeled, Baldwin-Branded, Philips ECC83?"

And then forget to put that tube in the picture.

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BooBird
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Post by BooBird »

Matt, that would be Funny :lol: !
on my old PC i have Pic's of my old shop, the rafter's were open and all those tube's were boxed and setting on runner's down through the rafter's, guy's would look up and see them and go, how many tube's do you own, my best answer was, I really don't know ?
when i sold them the count went to 390 K ! and i hung on to enough to keep me happy till the end !
The funny thing was, no matter how many tube's you own, there will allways be the odd tube you don't have, i really had a lot of fun playing with the one's i did have though !
but there come's a time when the old hand just won't hold still and the old eye's just can't focus on the lil stuff, so now i leave it up to young one's to carry on the tube amp building.
on my good day's i still get a little done. i've been working on this for a spell, it's 4 X EL84's, hope to finish it and get some mp3's up over on P/P.
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chabby
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Post by chabby »

JJ's are okay, they used to be better than they are right now. Funny, I have an RCA Blackplate in V4 of my 5E3 and a JJ 6V6 in the V3. The RCA came out of a 70's SF Champ I bought a while back. I have no idea how old it is, but its a killer tube and makes everything I've put it in sound great. I have a some great old Hammond EL84 pulls I got out of an old Hammond organ. They are of unknown origin exacpt they say "Made in Holland" on the black base. Also have a bunch of 12AX7's from the same organ.

I can't say enough about that RCA tube, it's a tough little sucker with thick glass and about 1/2 the size of the JJ. Its the exact same size as the RCA 5Y3 I have that I also pulled out of that champ. You're probably wondering what I put in the Champ. The answer is nothing. I rotate that tube set between the Deluxe and the Champ minus the JJ 6V6 of course. I may cry the day those two RCA's croak on me.

I paid nothing for them as they just came in the Champ I bought from an old guy that didn't ever play it. It looks almost like the day it was made. Exept I pulled the cap can out and recapped the main filters which dramatically improved the tone, so I'm glad I did. Part of me wanted to leave the can in real bad. But I knew the amp would benefit with an improved filtering system.
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Post by Plexi »

It probably depends on what voltage the tubes are running at, or how hot someone is biasing them. But, the old RCA, Sylvania,Raytheon,and a long list of good 6v6s.
The JJ have held up great for current made tubes,i hope they don't go down hill on quality, they are very good for taking higher voltages.
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chabby
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Post by chabby »

Actually the term "good" and modern or current tubes production just can't be put together-lol! Even the ones that seem okay like the JJ 6V6's (which I like) are a stretch to call good. The technology and equipment and individual knowledge of the craft is gone...long gone. That is why nos tubes are better. Its really not this corck sniffing craziness penny pinchers like to say it (myself included). The old tubes are superior in every way to anything produced today. Doubt that will ever change unless a helluva lot more people start buying tube amps-lol!

Thank God the Military had so many dang tubes, or we'd probably already be out. I'm lucky in that all the nos tubes I have I got free. People with no awareness of tubology left them in older amps that I've purchased over the years. Some of those tubes I've had over 6 years and they still are working at a high level, especially the 9 pin tubes. I f you ever get a fender tweed amp you will come to appreciate nos tubes, especially in amp requiring a 12AY7. What cracks me up sometimes is people will sned me an amp to re-tube and I'll look inside and wonder what the heck they are thinking. One tube goes out and they want to replace the entire set!

Musicians..... That where the term "pulls" comes from-lol! Techs get "pulls" from people that don't want their old tubes anymore. At least that's one place "Pulls" come from. Guys will go out and buy an old blkack or silver face Fender and hear folks tell them they should replace the tubes "in that ol thang" and they do it not knowing that often times many of the tubes will still be fine. That's happening less and less these days, but it still happens regularly around here. Among modern, current production tubes the only ones I really can stand are 6V6's and EL84's. Oddly eough the Chinese tubes are some of the best current production tubes in the last 2 years. I buy Mesa tubes alot for standard stock offering around here and have yet to get a bad one. They are the only modern, current tube I can say that about right now. Mesa has a QC deal with the Chinese that is actually adhered to in China before the tube ever gets over here.
That along with the reasonable price has me buying lots of Mesa's right now (with JJ hitting the skids in QC lately.......GT too.

I've had bad luck this year with Svetlanas too. The only power tube I haven't used much of lately is EH but I have used a few of their preamp tubes. Vox is using them as standard in their production amps I think now.
VHT (the old VHT) is using the too. Carr and Bogner both still use Svetlana's as stock. Fender was smart to gain control of a tube maker. With as many disposable amps as they are building and selling these days they need all the tubes they can get. The Hotrod series is the largest selling tube amp for Fender and the largest selling tube amps in history..

I won't accept them for repair anymore though and know a few other people that won't either. Ive taken in a few botched repair jobs on hotrods by other people and that's okay because those are usually complete board replacements.
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nyazzip
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Post by nyazzip »

...is it the "tube's tone", or the impedance match-up between output tubes and output transformers and dampening with speaker cabs? i remain unconvinced that the tube alone is responsible for as much of the tone as it is given credit for.....at one time i was convinced that i knew what el34s "sounded like"...i proved myself wrong.
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Post by demonufo »

Since this thread got resurrected, it might be an idea to mention that tubetramp (or Sgt Overdrive as we know him over here) is selling quads of Sylvanias for just $65. Also RCA, Raytheon, Tungsol and GE's. But I like the Syl's nowadays, and they seem to handle higher plates than other NOS too.
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colossal
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Post by colossal »

demonufo wrote:Since this thread got resurrected, it might be an idea to mention that tubetramp (or Sgt Overdrive as we know him over here) is selling quads of Sylvanias for just $65.
I got some very nice JAN/CBS 6V6GTs from the Sarge a few years back. Was running them in a 6V6 Plexi with 440V on the plates; they sounded great.
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demonufo
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Post by demonufo »

nyazzip wrote:...is it the "tube's tone", or the impedance match-up between output tubes and output transformers and dampening with speaker cabs? i remain unconvinced that the tube alone is responsible for as much of the tone as it is given credit for.....at one time i was convinced that i knew what el34s "sounded like"...i proved myself wrong.
Well, certainly the type of construction within a tube type does have a great impact on the sound.

And some of the current Chinese EL34's sound very little like an EL34. Yes the tube alone can be responsible for huge differences, even within same types. Especially with pre-amp tubes. Try comparing Sylvanias, Mullards, RFT's, and say for arguments sake EH ECC83's in the first gain stage of any amp, and you'll get very different results.

Comparing say XF2 Mullard EL34's with say Shuguangs for instance yield differences that are just as huge IMO.

I hear some pretty big differences between brands of EL84's too. Even bigger differences between certain brands of 6V6's. RCA and Brimar are worlds apart, but both great. Modern JJ's sound a bit different altogether but do not conform to traditional 6V6 specs.

The point here is though, despite the differences, you still have tell-tale signs of tube type, except in the cases of where construction differs from the original specs, like as mentioned earlier, the JJ 6V6 (not that far removed from the 6V6 sound though) and the Shuguang EL34 (very far removed from your typical EL34 sound) which happens a lot with many modern tubes.

Current production tubes have the disadvantage of not being allowed to use some of the chemical processes used in the olden days, and the quality of raw materials being not as good. You also find that the construction tends to blur a bit (ie Pentodes with beam forming plates more in keeping with Beam Tetrodes)

To go back to your post though, it might just be that you were acquainted with what EL34 flavoured amps sounded like, rather than EL34's themselves. Changing between types of tubes can be quite subtle to some ears, but when you really start listening hard, the differences are there.
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