I was really amazed at how they sounded so similar when not being pushed. I have a Carr Mercury which will take all those tubes (except the 6v6) and did a similar test. On the clean setting they were pretty much the same but when pushed, each tube revealed a completely different character. In that amp, with the stock Eminence Patriot speaker, I chose the KT66. I wish I had the patience to record such a demo. Nice work!
Auto play brought me here, and I was just listening while brewing a pot of coffee so I couldn't see what you had in there. First of all great test, no noodling, or blues solos, just straight to the point. I think playing chords is the best way to really get the "feel" for a new sound. That being said, after coming back to the computer in time for the second go around, I really liked the 6V6 for some reason. I had it in my head that I was going to like the KT66 the most, but dang...it seemed to be the only tube that stood out from the rest. Hmmmm...Good comparison, thanks! Cool amp too!
Good Vid! I like how you play the same thing with no breaks. Great comparison. KT77s have my money! If you can do a video capturing distorted sounds at say low, med and high gain settings you'd be providing us with a great resource. Thanks again for taking the time.
Good test best yet. This shows how much the circuit design affects the amp. sound. I have a lot of old 60's tube amps. I use 6L6 6V6 and EL84 and El34 This covers most guitar amp tube tones on through 2000's amp sounds then we have to talk Speakers and Cabinet design sounds. LOL, great video.
Thanks for taking the time to do this. I know it took some time. A question that comes up often is "when can you safely swap one tube type for another." That is something I am researching heavily. Even though your amp can do this easily (because of Cathode biasing), you must still be careful when it comes to plate voltages, etc etc etc. and being in a safe zone.
No problem! Yeah, I don't know much about it, truthfully; I only swapped them out without much thought because the designer of the amp gave a list of tubes that could be swapped. And actually, the guys at Eurotubes (eurotubes.com) are happy to answer questions about that stuff if you email them -- they've been awesome (and they sell great JJ tubes as well!) So maybe check them out.
This is a good test that makes a great point: there just isn't a ton of difference between output tubes tone wise. To me, I thought the KT66 was a smidge better than the rest. Didn't care for how dark the KT77 was.
huh, about to listen to dirty but was surprised through an apogee interface and studio monitors that the differences were not as big. First one I opened my eyes on was the KT77 but not the second time around
I appreciate the effort but suspect that a big variable is using an amp designed to accommodate all the varieties. I didn't hear the sound of 6V6's I get from my Carr Skylark or old Deluxe Reverb. Also didn't hear that big bottomed scooped sound I get from my Carr Rambler. Some is certainly the design of the amp but there's a reason designers use a tube type to get the sound they want out of a given design. Again, thanks for taking the time.
I cant decide btwn the KT66, EL34s and 6V6s. I had a Divided by 13 amp that used 6v6 & el34 and you can flip a switch to use either ones but not both at the same time. The el34s were punchier and a great ACDC tone but had a tendency to be sharp and sometimes hard, a mix of both tubes who have been perfect.
Great demo dude. It depends on the circuit too as to what sounds best overall. My observations: 5881 good sound even across the spectrum but a little dark on top. KT66 king of the bunch, sweet punchy upfront with a unique bottom end. KT77 snappy more than punchy but good for a tight sounding rig as the low extension was cut off. 6v6 the poor man's tube - week mid sucked lacking punch (good for covering George Harrison. El34 wasn't as exciting as I had hoped and its younger bro the KT77 smoked it. Pitty you didn't have KT88 as well IMO the KT tubes smoke standard tubes and they have a much improved design over them. They sound better because they are technically more efficient.
Brian Cullen I actually talked with Joe Morgan about this and the biggest different from the 6L6 vs 6V6 is power output, it is the same tube, for all intensive purposes, but just has less power output
Brian Cullen Reason why I say this is I talked with Joe because I wanted to have less wattage on my RV35 (it is the RCA35 with reverb) and he said to drop in the 6v6's due to their lower wattage and similar tone of the 6L6
GCKelloch yeah knowledge is more important than guessing and I agree with you about that. The KT88 horse sound? sounds like something I would like to keep. Don't forget that different tubes will sound better than others when switching between different genres of music too like KT66 and 6v6 both do great blurred but KT88 maybe boot so much... different tubes sound different yes? timbre chambers are most of what my ear hears but they also take away and emphasis the original EQ spectrum of the guitar signal, just as capacitors and changing cap values will do. So in that sense EQ is totally applicable.
Thanks for taking the time to put this video together! I don't believe that any one tube is better than the other, because there are so many other variables to consider. Like most of you, I've got a sizable collection of guitars with a variety of pickups. One guitar may sound better through a particular tube then another. What I did take away from this particular comparison was that although it may have sounded the least powerful out of all of the tubes in the shootout, the 6v6 tubes had a clarity, and sparkle to them. I'm curious how that would translate with an amp that's run clean as a pedal platform. Most guitarists are guilty of wanting too much low-end in their guitar sound, which in my opinion can muddy up the mix in a band situation. Surely someone can eq enough low-end on A6 v6 to make themselves happy without sacrificing the overall quality of the band's sound. There are less and less venues to play these days with a cranked up amp, and IMHO the lower wattage tubes work better, because you can increase the Master Volume and get more out of the power tubes without killing you band mates, or the crowd in the front row. I might try a 6v6 amp when I start looking for another one to add to my collection.
The 6V6 and EL34's were a huge surprise...Dead sounding in comparison to say the 5881. Now I know this might differ between amp types so its not to say that EL34's are not good. Its just to sau=y they are not preferred for me in this amp. Quite the surprise all the same. Not sure what I think of this amp though. I would love to see this type of test on other amps. Great Job Ryan.
honestly it was hard to tell a lot of that when you have some downtime in between -- turning amp off, letting cool for a sec, swapping tubes, turning back on....it was hard to get much of a sense of touch. :/ you're probably right though.
I could be wrong, but the power tubes won't make much difference until the amp is really pushing air. I think this is mostly the front end of the amp we are hearing.
Ryan - great test, thanks for putting that together. Quick question - now that it's been awhile, have you settled on one or do you switch them out occasional for fun?
+HardwireSpeers I liked most of them for clean stuff. I ended up putting in the KT-66s and am leaving them in until they wear out. Then I plan to go 6v6. Then maybe kt-77. :)
Awesome job man. You put a lot of work into this. I just got my RCA 35 combo the other day and have been having a blast with it. It currently has the stock 5881s with a Creamback. I also have a AC40 Deluxe head with a Gold in a 112 cab. I've played the Gold+ Creamback which was awesome and also played the Gold by itself with the Creamback inside unplugged. Would you mind telling me which speaker your using and if you've tried others? Thanks.
Thanks, man. yeah it took some work...which is why it hurts that I did the dirty tube version of this video incorrectly haha. :) I have a creamback too, actually. I've been tempted to buy a greenback and give that a shot to hear the difference but haven't done it yet -- if i do i'll be posting a video of the difference. :) You like the Gold?
Yes I love the Gold. I can't imagine a better speaker for my AC40 besides maybe a ASW Elegante (which I haven't tried). But as for the RCA35, so far I like it best with the Gold + Creamback. I'm starting to think that it sounds better with ceramic only or mixed, but not alnico only. However, I don't think I've been able pump enough volume through the RCA35+Alnico only to prove that theory just yet. It's all subjective anyway and I think that's the beauty of all of these fun experiments. I can't wait to gig with the RCA. I've been gigging for 2 years with the AC40+Alnico Gold setup, so it's fairly broken in.
baugus423 Very cool. Thanks for the feedback! Yeah it'd be cool to get another amp at some point with some kinda alnicos and run stereo...that would be awesome haha. :)
baugus423 it was kind of by accident from a conversation I had with the guys at www.eurotubes.com/ (where I buy my JJs from). they know a ton, and told me they'd work because of how the amp is biased. pretty cool!
I would like to make a request.. when doing a demo like this it would be greatly appreciated if you were to also do slow strums so that we can hear the open space between the strings.. as well as the sustain and harmonics. Thank you for the post
Great idea and good recording but would have been a lot more useful had you played at least a riff or two for comparison between each tube rather than strumming one chord.
The ear will adapt to the subtle sonic differences.The first demo showed me that it just doesn't matter. There are more important ways to get great tone starting with the guitar player.
If you had to use two amps and choose two power tubes to compliment each other, what would you do? I'm considering buying a British style EL34 amp to compliment my Fender 6L6 stack
i should check out the schematic for your amp because i know i can't just swap out the 6l6gc in my bassman ten for a set of 6v6... nice sounding amp by the way
Ryan Kiesshauer yep - but if your amp is biased for a 6V6 with something like -20V on the grid it will pull about 70mA. if you throw in a 6L6GC at the same bias it wants to pull at least double that current. maybe your transformer can handle it, maybe it can't. and the internal resistances are a bit different so you get a bit of power dampening and tone sucking. like i said i'm gonna check out the morgan amps because i hear no difference at all in your sound bites. could be a versatile design, which is convenient for the consumer. sounds nice anyway!
kingswayguitar it's supposed to be versatile i think, yeah. I agree that I heard little to no difference in the recordings, though...makes me think that there just aren't many differences in clean sounds between tubes, but who knows if that's right.
kingswayguitar THe amp is cathode biased.. large 250r/10W cathode resistor to ground with a 100µf bypass cap. Depending on OT impedance I would be a bit concerned about the 6v6 tubes as they want to see twice the impedance load of a EL34. plate voltage is ok as the 6v6 used is a JJ 6V6S tube which can take much higher voltages (and a little more current) than any other 6v6 tube..
Even being cathode biased, I'd have a bias pot for tube changes.......Different tubes are gonna need a different bias range resister for optimum tone/performance
Try putting an old Russian tube made before they could assemble them vertically parallel. Round hole moly high temp alloy plates. The crooked tubes were the best ever made. (Svetlana) you will hear the difference then.
You have to find where the sweet spot is with the bias trim parts wherever it sounds good to you with one set of power tubes in measure of the readings what's a probe 4 m a current draw set every tube to the same current draw for example if you have a set of tubes and and it sounds really good and you measure 31 ma for your bias make sure every set of tubes that you stick in for a comparison is measured at the same 31 Ma then you got a true test you'll find out that all the tools will sound the same after measure correctly some may break up earlier such as 5881 or WGC but as far as 6l6 GC s the all sound the same the true nature of whether better or not it's all subjective
+Joe Shmoe Very subtle differences, hearing the different power tubes saturated/driven/distorted though should give a better comparison if you couldn't quite pick it out. The 6v6's for instance have little to no bass response compared too all of the others, which I wasn't even aware of until watching this video haha.
Haha true, I have some 6L6 and EL34 at home and playing them live they have a big difference in tone. (The EL34 have more separation between the bass, mids, and highs, plus way more bass on the whole.) It might have been this recording or the fact that it's just one chord.
