Carvin Legacy EL34/6L6 and preamp tubes

[Silverburst]

Hi Legacy (ex)players. Anyone tried 6L6's in these tanks ? What brand and how did they compare to the stock EL34 (mine has Sovteks) ? Same for the preamp tubes of you use different brands (mine has Groove Tubes, stock if I'm correct) I'd love to hear your experiences. Thx

Mike

[rummy]

JJs.

www.eurotubes.com

[goodwill559]

Power Tubes:

First i tried Ruby Tubes EL34B-STR (Shuguang EL34-B). They sounded better than the stock Sovteks. Very good sound, hard to describe but they sounded bigger, not louder or heavier, but more wide open.
Then i tried JJ / Tesla 6L6GC and i immediately liked them over EL34's. After that i tried TAD 6L6GC-STR and that was the end of my search. Good raunchy sound.

Preamp Tubes:

Tried the new TungSol, and compared to the stock Groove Tubes, they had a brighter sound, a hair less gain. Then tried JJ 803s (long plate). Great sounding midrange, not as much gain. Next was high gain JJ ECC83 and ended up keeping two high gain JJ ECC83's in V1&V2.

Different strokes for different folks.

[Silverburst]

Indeed a great site Rummy, I'm gonna check it out more closely.

Thx for sharing your findings goodwill559, exactly what I'm looking for. I would like the lead channel a bit more scooped and tighter, and a tad more gain would be great as well. Did the high gain JJ ECC83 pushed your Legacy in that direction besides the higher gain ?

Of course all this is very subjective, but you gotta start somewhere

[goodwill559]

I didn't think that the Groove Tubes and JJ ECC83 were all that different sounding from each other apart from the high gain ECC83 having more gain and a bit darker sounding. They both had a tighter sound than the new TungSol 12AX7, but the TungSol had more high end. Bob at Eurotubes can get you high gain JJ's.

The biggest difference to my ears was the power tube switch from EL34 to 6L6. That gave a more scooped sound, with more on top and on the bottom whereas the EL34 had a nice bloom in the midrange, a more well behaved, even and graceful sound.

I give the most weight to the power tube switch getting you closer to your goal and then would say preamp tubes will help you fine tune your sound from there.