preamp tube change in marshall avt50

[btweensunandmoon]

hey,
I have a avt50. For the buck, this amp is great for the "at home" shredders like myself. In no way am I a tech minded person when it comes to guitar electronics. Right now, the stock amp delivers great tone, sort of the satch boogie type of sound. I'd put this against an all tube marshall any day of the week. Its that good! Its just one step away from being perfect. The distortion could stand to be just a little fuller and smoother. My question to you is if I replaced the preamp tube (it has one 12AX7 and its very accessable) with another kind, would that make any kind of noticeable difference? Please help my out on this one. I'm very happy with the amp but would like to squeeze just a little more versatility out of it.

[Mandrak]

Originally Posted by btweensunandmoon

hey,
I have a avt50. For the buck, this amp is great for the "at home" shredders like myself. In no way am I a tech minded person when it comes to guitar electronics. Right now, the stock amp delivers great tone, sort of the satch boogie type of sound. I'd put this against an all tube marshall any day of the week. Its that good! Its just one step away from being perfect. The distortion could stand to be just a little fuller and smoother. My question to you is if I replaced the preamp tube (it has one 12AX7 and its very accessable) with another kind, would that make any kind of noticeable difference? Please help my out on this one. I'm very happy with the amp but would like to squeeze just a little more versatility out of it.

That would make a small diference.

Try an RFT tube.

[Champagne Mist]

The AVTs have a solid state power section right? I'm not sure how much of an improvement you could make, unfortunately.

[somata]

i use a hybid (tube-digital-ss) amp myself (johnson millenium head) and i found that a preamp tube change did make a bit of a difference. i went with the electro-harmonix 12ax7's. i found that they added a bit more articulation and clarity on my high gain settings...
the tubestore.com has great info on a variety of 12ax7's and good prices. granted, it probably won't have as much of an effect on your amp as it might on an all tube-amp (in a hybrid, the preamp tubes tend to be there to just "warm up" the signal path, as opposed to generating any significant amount of gain on their own) but i've been pleased with the change...

[jeff l]

Changing the preamp tube in a Valvestate isn't going to give you what you really want. You said the tone isn't full enough....I'm afraid you're missing the power tubes that you need to get the real Marshall sound.

Give it a try if you want but I don't think it's going to help much. I had a Valvestate and to me it had a very 2-dimensional sound......very flat. They're quite good for metal but not much else, imho.


Power tubes will give you that nice, 3- dimensional bloom that most guitar players like.