A Question about tubes

[fps_dean]

http://I'm not really looking for the 'ultimate tubes' just ones that will get the buzzy/fizzy high-end of the amp away

i think then you have the right idea getting JJ tubes. better tubes are available, but JJ certinally are damn fine sounding with the right price. like many here i use JJ tubes, very happy with them. in fact i think it was a someone here, along time ago, who suggested them to me.

You can do a hell of a lot better for the same price though and much less fizzier.

[Kepu]

Probably one of my idiosyncracies - but its worth trying if you have a spare 5751 or a 12AT7 lying around  :D

No I unfortunately don't have :P

You can do a hell of a lot better for the same price though and much less fizzier.

Any suggestions?

[Roobubba]

I recently stuck some JJ preamps into my Peavey 5150-II, and the difference from the old tubes was incredible!
The amp tech I got to look over the amp tested the output of the transformer, and found that one side was very much stronger than the other, so my "matched set" of 4 tubes actually meant having 2 running at about 33 mA each and the other 2 running at nearer to 20 mA each.
He was pretty scathing about "matched" tube sets, because, in practice, for almost every amp it's not that crucial - there are other factors which may (or may not!) negate the matchedness of your tubes.

For high gain amps, the other thing he mentioned was that you're really after something with plenty of headroom that's built very well (and will therefore last longer). I had got some Svetlana Winged C 6L6GC tubes, and he suggested that next time I buy the one up in their range, because they're built better.

The pre-amp tubes are far more important for tone in a high-gain, high-output metal amp, like the 120W 5150-II I have.
I bought 4 JJs and 2 Sovtek ECC84lps tubes, and although I haven't tried mixing them around in the pre-amp section, I could do so. As long as you get good quality tubes for both pre- and post- stages, you'll be fine!

Roo

[fps_dean]

This may sound counter intuitive but I find a slightly lower gain pre amp tube in V1 such as a GE 5751 (as opposed to a 12AX7) gives you slightly more headroom and allows you to get the power amp going without loosing clarity from the first valve going into OD.  It also, to my ears, allows the character of OD/distortion pedals to come through as V1 doesn't go into OD so quickly.

Often using lower gain tubes will do this.  I heard a clip of someones JCM 800 and it sounded amazing.  I was talking to him and he said he put a 12AT7 in the preamp for this reason and it still sounded great and had a lot of gain for a non-modded JCM 800.