Swapped the Valve in my HT Blackstar Dual (comedy clips added)

[phlip]

Curiosity has gotten the berrer of me so I opened the pedal up for an examination.
Going in from the back is simple as long as you remember which plug connects to what. Lift out the bottom board, disconnect the 2 plugs.
Unscrew the jacks from the case and slide the second board out.
This showed me the valve socket on the riser card and that the retainer would just unclip from the front via the viewing Grille in future. I've removed the retainer for the moment so I can try other valves easily.

Putting a valve in from the front requires a little dexterity and a gentle touch as not to bend the riser board the socket is on.

Well this time I replaced the stock valve a Sovtec 12ax7wa with the only spare I had a EH12ax87 both cheap bottom end really


Does it sound any different?
It does, it's more harmonic and open it's not a jump out a grab you by the throat change but if I can describe it as going from a sound that is good but you can't quite put your finger on something not quite there to the sound with the something there. After the swap I played and had a niggle that something that was wrong was now right.

I've got some JJ's and a gold pin JJ coming so I'll try these and record some comparisons, hope fully converting to Mp3 wont' kill any tonal differences.

I can't quite explain it accurately but it is better.

[MrBump]

That's very interesting.

I have a HT dual, which I love.  But the main complaints I've heard about it is that it changes ones tone to a "Blackstar" tone...

I might have a look under the hood.

Mark.

[ailean]

I've been meaning to try that but all my good valves are in use. Although I think I may have a JJ around.

Thanks for the post!

[hamfist]

I've been meaning to try that but all my good valves are in use. Although I think I may have a JJ around.

Thanks for the post!

JJ ?  I thought you said "Good" valves ? (apologies from this self-confessed NOS tube snob  :oops:)

[Twinfan]

Nothing wrong with JJs  :)  Plus in a band mix, you can bung anything you like in there to a certain extent.  Only you will know, or care about, the difference!

I always wondered about trying different valves in my Dual when I had it, but never got round to it...

[ailean]

I've been meaning to try that but all my good valves are in use. Although I think I may have a JJ around.

Thanks for the post!

JJ ?  I thought you said "Good" valves ? (apologies from this self-confessed NOS tube snob  :oops:)

Nah, I said all my good valves were in use. :)

But a JJ might be better than whatever is in there now.

[phlip]

Feel free to pop an NOS ecc83 in the post and I'll report back  :D :D :D

[ailean]

I know Alan has a NOS mullard somewhere...

[tomjackson]

I'm a bit sceptical about the NOS thing.  I mean even if somebody made a valve as good as a 60's Mullard, would anybody actually really believe it was as good?  I think some of the Chinese valves are pretty poor but with current demand for decent quality valves high, I bet some of the best current production valves, especially the ones selected and tested are pretty damn close and I bet that there woulld be no benefit in putting a NOS valve in a footpedal with 300 surface mounted pcb components anyway.

I speak not from experience but complete ignorance of NOS valves :oops: !!

I tried a JJ in my dual and I thought there was a very minimal improvement.

[HTH AMPS]

I have a pretty substantial NOS valve stash including all the goodies (Mullard, Brimar, Mazda, GE, Sylvania, RCA etc...) and there really is a massive difference in tone between the various NOS valves themselves, but they are ALL superior to any current production valve.

Thats not to say current production stuff is junk, you just need to know which are suitable for use in various applications to play to their strong points. 

For example, I did a taste test on my homebrew AC30 (6V6s in the output stage though).  The first preamp stage (V1) was won hands down by Brimar ECC83s.  I tried a variety of preamp valves for V2 and V3 but the difference was negligable so I stuck with the Svetlana/Winged-C ECC83s.

A similar listening test on my H&K Cream Machine amp ended up with a Brimar ECC81 in V1 and a Brimar ECC82 in V2 (output stage).

I'm personally not a big fan of the JJ preamp valves, they're a bit dark and flat sounding (good for a bright amp though).  I'd go with EH 12AX7s any day of the week from the current production options, they're a really tasty sounding valve.

[ailean]

I'm a bit sceptical about the NOS thing.  I mean even if somebody made a valve as good as a 60's Mullard, would anybody actually really believe it was as good?  I think some of the Chinese valves are pretty poor but with current demand for decent quality valves high, I bet some of the best current production valves, especially the ones selected and tested are pretty damn close and I bet that there woulld be no benefit in putting a NOS valve in a footpedal with 300 surface mounted pcb components anyway.

I speak not from experience but complete ignorance of NOS valves :oops: !!

I tried a JJ in my dual and I thought there was a very minimal improvement.

Production standards have dropped for valves because not many people use them now. A lot of the NOS stock is from military stocks that are no longer required. The military of course had fairly high quality requirements for it's valves back in the day,and also much more equipment used them so the industry had reason to invest in quality.

These days it's just not the same, the eastern production factories produce vast quantities of 'adequate' stock valves, there is little reason to produce the kind of high quality stock.

You can still get very high quality valves, but you will pay a very high price them. Hence NOS is actually the best price / performance ratio at the moment. That will change.

As for the effect, swapping valves in an amp can make a huge difference to your sound, but I'm talking huge in tone terms, and playing with tone is about the subtleties. There isn't a valve that will make a Les Paul sound like a Strat :)

[phlip]

Well here'sa few clips.
It's hard to tell if there's any difference from these (Of course make your own mind up) as the MP3 encoding robs some detail.

While in the room with all hell full belt on the speakers or headphones the JJ's both sound much less brittle on the top end and smoother. You can also tell that the Sovtec and EH are more compressed than the JJ's you can even see it in the waveforms in cubase the JJ's have much greater peaks and troughs the other 2 are flattened off.
The Sovtec is the stock valve as shipped.
Recordings are from the speaker emulated out on the HT Dual reverb is a plate added in cubase.

Anyway I'm leaving the JJ in there.

[Twinfan]

Which one - Gold or non-Gold?

[phlip]

None Gold.
The gold is in the Rat/Blackheart now There's no noticble difference in the pedal but in the amp the gold sounds noticibly crisper and with both JJ's there's considerably less fizz with powerscalling dialed all the way down (Or is that up).