Powertubes - need replacing?

[witeter]

Ok so ive swapped the outer tubes for the inner tubes and now the inner ones dont light but the outter ones do-hopefully this means its not the amp; so will order a new pair of EL34s and see what happens :-)
cheers again

[Twinfan]

Good luck - make sure you take it to a tech for a bias check  :)

[Dmoney]

You should get a matched quad otherwise the bias points on the old EL34's and the new EL34's could be pretty different, and you won't get all 4 working at an optimum.

[witeter]

Cheers guys! the tube guy whom i get all my stuff from has asked me to ship him one of the good tubes and one of the bad ones-if the good one is indeed 'ok' then he will make sure 2 new tubes are shipped out with matching bias to the existing ones-if not then itll have to be a quad. He should get them tomorrow so will have some more info then :-) oh and ive also ordered a multimeter to do my own biasing. The tube guy is such a gent he even offered me to talk me through it via phone to make sure i bias the amp correctly! Check our Karltone for tube stuff, he is awesome

[Dmoney]

Aaah! Good plan sending him those valves. Let us know what he says.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Which ones are ya getting?

[witeter]

JJ EL34's as those are the ones the Peavey comes with from stock i believe

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Not too bad. I'd do a little research, there's alot you can do with a different set of EL-34's. EH, GT, Winged C, all make great EL-34's. I guess just matters what kinda sound you're after, but power tubes will help you get "there".

[witeter]

Yeah cheers man, i know theres tons to choose from-just wanted to play it safe for now and as ive only got the amp i want to try it with 'stock' tubes and go from there :-)

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Cool, I get ya. In the future, I definitely recommend it though, if not just to shake things up a bit.

[witeter]

So powertubes were tested and theres nothing wrong with them-will wait to get them back and give it another go at rehearsals. maybe it just needs cranking way more than what i am used to- as i have read other posts of people having a similar issue-so we shall see, if not will try swapping some preamp tubes around.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Oi, hate when that happens. I'm not too sure what  to suggest here :/

I guess the usual suspects like pre tubes, maybe a transformer, but not too sure here, just a shot in the dark.

[witeter]

Its ok mate-thanks anyways; i think i need to give it another bash in the practice room and try a couple of things i have been reading up on as i think the key lies in the effects loop volume boost...a bit of a strange one but it seems that a lot of people recommend playing the head with the effects loop engaged (via the footswitch) the whole time-with the send and receive knobs maxed out to 10. This gives a huge volume boost and brings the amp to 'full' volume-without this you have to crank it to apparently insane levels to get anywhere near the volume required for say metal with a hard hitting drummer (when compared to some other heads anyways). Bizarre i know, but tried it briefly at home and the effects loop does provide a huge boost-so it could just be a 'getting used to the amp' issue. Will find out monday at practice :-)
Obviously if mic'd through a PA this wouldnt be an issue.