johnny5

hey myles, i have had my ghia for about 3-4 months now and absolutely love almost every aspect of it, the sound, the simplicity, the texture, and most of all, the thing just has vibe i can't explain...... there a couple things though. sometimes it seems a bit dark sounding (EC83 - 5751 - JJEL84's) such that i run the the tone knob at about 9 o'clock (with mahogany top guitar with humbuckers). could it be the el84's might be getting old? i bought it used so i have know idea how old they are. i like the grind the EC83 gives but maybe thats why it seems dark at times. long plate 7125? also, it's never really loud enough in a rock band situation without being mic'd. i tried a different recifier tube (GU4?, the one up from the 5Y4) and blew the conjuctive filter. put back the 5Y4. anyway, how do you like your Mazerati? could it be the everything amp asuming i had an attenuator for lower volume jams? i love the Ghia and want to use it in my band so bad, just trying to figure out how. any words of wisdom?

Rectifiers are generally good or bad. I would first swap out V1 and V2, but also check for loose end in the guitar cable, the input jack, etc. Is this a new Ghia? If not, the output tubes should be suspect. Were you running the amp at full volume by any chance with a pedal in the front end turned all the way up? well, yeah, kinda. i had the volume between 2:00 / 3:00 with a Boss SD-1 in front. swicthing the pedal in and out. the cut came about 5 seconds after i kicked in the pedal and switched to the neck humbucker. i was playing like this for about and hour or so. pedal on and off, volume swells and such. new ghia? no, i bought it used over the internet. apparently, it's a 2001 model.

i was jamming last night with my newly aquired Carmen Ghia with the band and about 1 hour into it, it just cut out. not totally but like to quarter volume. it sounded the almost same. like the same tone with all the distortion (all power tube), but just way lower in volume. any ideas? could it be the rectifier tube? of course i checked all my cables and pedals, speaker cable, nothing wrong there. i brought it home and tried to replace all the tubes, pre, power, and recifier to no avail. i even removed the chassis to see if anything looked burnt. everything looked ok. i am stuck now. any words of advice? i hope it nothing serious, i have only had the thing for two weeks.

myles, i know this question keeps coming up, but ths is the last time i'll ask. i believe you are familiar with the peavey classic series (classic 30, delta blues, etc.). is the Carme Ghia as loud or louder than the classic 30 or delta blues? (or should i say "have the abilty to cut as well"). i am about to order a Ghia and have a C30. the C30 "just" hangs with the band, so anthing there or beyond is ok. thanks, john

myles or any body who knows. looking at the pre-amp tubes from back of a DSL50 head, which are which? i know the one farthest to the left (sheilded one) is V1. really, i want to know which is the phase inverter and if the reverb is tube driven or not. thanks, john

hi. just wondering if it is possible to put 6L6 or KT66 tubes in a Marshall DSL 50 (while aproprietly adjusting the bias)without possibly damaging the amp? i have heard (read) both yes and no on the web. could you confirm this? thanks, john

myles, i was wondering what you would recomend for power tubes in a Marshall DSL 50? everybody seems to be yelling about the JJ EL34L's. and would you happen to know the pre-amp tube layout on that amp. looking from the back, i know the first one on the far left is V1. not sure of the rest. thanks, john

Myles, below was posted in the "which tubes should I use" section but thought it might get seen here. After reading your article "which tubes should I use", I am much better informed yet still feel I am missing something. Maybe there are others with me here, so let me try to explain; I am trying to understand the differences in the 6L6 tubes (or just power tubes in general). I play rocky blues and hard rock (I know the two guitar sounds are different) and I am wondering what the best tube is for me. I have some KT66HP's right now and for the blues side of playing, these tubes kick butt. However, when I kick up the preamp gain (or kick the OD pedal) for a hard rock sound, the lows just don't seem tight enough. There also seems to be more low mids than high mids. My dilemma is that I read “easily pushed into distortion” (6L6CB), I think that would be great for hard rock, but now I am thinking twice, three times and am a bit confused. Then I read “#3 rating for earlier breakup” and I feel that would be good for rock too so by the time I have the amp at 7, the power tubes are saturated and things are compressed and not falling in and out of power tube distortion. Yet you say the heavy rocker prefer the high GT rated tubes for clean headroom. Why would you want clean headroom for heavy rock? Say in a modern Mesa or Marshall ,would the sound of those amps be more characterized by pre-amp gain or power tube gain? For instance, the classic Marshall metal sound probably has very high gain in the preamp and lots of headroom in the power amp? Or is it visa-versa? I think there are other folks out there who do not completely understand as I do and some of the terminology used can be misleading as far as what we read and what it represents sonically. Could you help us poor fools out? Thank you, John

MYLES, i have got the reverend hellhound and have been messing with it since i got it. partially cuz i love to tweek things and partially to find the tone. i out some KT-66's in it and it's really nice with the cleans and just breaking uo blues sound. problem is, my band plays rock, mostly distorted guitar rock. my amp does it but kinda doesn't like it if you know what i mean. i am thinking of doing the mod to convert to EL34's to get more of a JCM800 sound. i read that when done, you can still use 6L6's (just re-adjust bias). 1) will this mod make the overall amp sound darker (less treble)? even with 6L6's in? 2) or should i just try some low rated (maybe #3 GT) 6L6S's? thanks, john

not sure if this question belogs here but here it goes. how much effect does a "cabinet", not speaker have on your over all sound. i have a 1X12 60 watt combo and built a 1X12 cab with about a 3/4 back in the wood shop at my work. when i sized it, i just added an inch to all the dimensions of the combo thinking i wanted to get a little more bottom out of it. now i am thinking maybe i need more or that i built it incorrectly. would it make a big difference to buy one? or buy a 2X12 cab from someone like Avatar? i am trying to achieve more "spread" since my band has been playing alot of shows were they do not mic me. i am considering the following; 1) buying a 2X12 from Avatar with either Greenbacks or V30's. 2) getting a well built 1X12 and using it with the combo speaker 3) scraping the whole rig and just get a head (something like a JCM800) and a 4X12 cab. my issue is that i do not want to spend a bunch of money for minimum results. do you (Myles) or anybody have any advise for me? thanks, john

johnny5 ...... These tubes are about as different as two tubes could be. Low vacuum vs. high vacuum .... large plates vs. light plates .... pentode vs. beam pentode. It is almost like comparing a sailboat to a Cessna 172. I'd need 5,000 words to try to give my take on this here The 6L6S is more typical of a 6L6, where the KT-66 is a "kinlkess tetrode" that is more linear than the standard 6L6. thanks anyway. i was just curius. maybe i'll go buy some good book on the subject matter that is not too over the top. john

curious about the charector of EL84's as compared to KT66's. i know you have been asked this kind of question before and i know i have read it but something is not clear. one of my amps has EL84's and the other KT66's and i find that when the EL84 amp gets into power amp distortion it kind of stays there (more compressed i guess, more saturated) and with the KT66 it tends to go in and out of distortion much quicker and easier (much less saturated and more of a loose bottom, deeper but looser). anyhow, is what i am hearing a funtion of the power tubes? entire circuitry? partial to both? would a 6L6S behave a little more compessed/saturated and possibly have a tighter bottom as compared to the KT66? i am realizing it takes a long time to get a grasp of all the nueances in amp technology. thanks, john

John, On your loop recording method, it depends on the amp, and whether it is a serial or parallel effects loop. It also depends on where the loop is in the chain. I'd stay away from doing this, as you are getting none of the output section and character of the amp. Go get something like a THD Hot Plate. You will not stress the amp as long as the amp has a load on it. Some amps also have a shorting jack, so when the speakers are disconnected, the power amp B+ is shut off. Pot values change gain structure. As an example, if everything else remained the same on a typical Fender Black Face era amp .... The mid pot is a 10k pot. At 1000 hz, the output is -26 with the pot set at "5". Now, if we changed this pot to a 250k pot, as used in some other positions or amps, we would now be -7db down at 1000Hz, or in essence, we'd have a mid range gain of almost 20db. Considering to raise a level by only 3db takes two times the power (like we'd have to go from a 50 watt amp to a 100 watt amp to get 3db of gain), going 19db in this case would be a huge jump. This is one reason a 50 watt Marshall appears to be a lot more agressive and "louder" at a given setting, than 50 watt Fener amp. It's the "tone stack" in the front end. myles, thanks. so if i decided to try some different pot values (slightly larger)out to get a little more pre-amp gain, it would not demand to much of the power supply? or anything else for that matter? i am interested in tweeking and have an idea what tweeks do sonically but am unsure how they effect the rest of the components. i started with inexpensive pedals so if i ruined it, it wasn't so bad. i don't want to destroy my amps. john

myles, maybe an easy question; sometimes i run a line out of my effects loop "SEND" straight into a recorder for (quiet) home recording (with nothing pluged into the RETURN). what i have noticed is that when i try to turn the volume up (with only the line out pluged in) nothing happens. it gets to a certain level and then the volume pot just spins. this does not bother me, cuz i am able to get the levels i need to record, but i am concerned i may be stressing the amp (2 X 6L6, 60W). would this mean the effects loop is series? could i harm my amp this way? and totally on another topic; what would be the general effect in changing pot values for Volume and Gain? thanks, john

thank you! John, You bet ... just remember, they can get warm. Don't try this with power tubes though. Make sure the volumes are all the way down, as there is going to be a big POP when you pull preamp tubes, and you don't want to stress a speaker. We do this all the time with the tripple tone kits for V1.

myles, quick and easy; can you switch preamp tubes while a tube amp is on? maybe if both gain and volume controls are all the way down? curious to see if i have to power on and off when going through preamp tubes to fine tune my sound. john

i actually have 2 questions. one i think might be easy and the other, maybe not. 1)i noticed that my idle bias current was changing from place to place (studio to home) by about 10 mili amps. i couldn't figure it out and figured the trim pot was moving during transport. but i recently checked the wall voltage at both places and were; home: 119VAC, about 72mA for 2 KT66 studio: 125VAC, about 82mA is it the wall Voltage making this change? i don't know if i should set it so things will run alittle cooler at home or hotter at the studio. help? 2) the amps preamp is loosely based on the Bassman. are there any simple tricks / tweaks to get a little more preamp gain / compression? like an easy cap or resistor change? i have tried some different pre-tubes and it does something but i am looking for more. thanks, john

myles, i promise this is the last. i asked groove tubes but they would not give me a straight answer. i would like to know the idle (approx.) bias current for KT66-HP and 6L6S, given i'm running a plate voltage of 480V and both tubes are #5 GT rated. would appriciate the help, thanks

Christopher ... christopher, check out blueguitar.org. steve Ahola has got several cool mods on the Classic 30 (52 pages of discrptions to be exact), including a foot switchable boost circuit. lots of very tone improving tips. many of which are quite easy to do. i did alot of them on my C30. the amp is SOO much better now. good luck, john Be sure to catch us next time ... it was a blast. The THD is pretty amazing. If you are in my area, you are more than welcome to try mine. The Peavey Classic 30 ... a really fun amp. I have a lot of clients with these that play gigs with them all the time, and in some fairly large venues. It is possible to add a mod to switch the mid boost, but would be more cost than it may be worth. Its a matter of a switch latch off the circuit. I'd leave the amp stock. At the moment, I have a few folks out testing some new tubes off new tooling in "your" amp. I may post something soon on this new tube that may be stronger than the EL84S (JJ) tube. It would be nice to have three choices for new tubes for an EL84 ... although the current Russian tube is not a viable option in most cases. Regards,

myles, sorry to have so many questions but you have so much knowledge. my plate voltage / B+ voltage in the hellhound is about 480V. i tried the KT66 (not sure of the brand, they were my tech's) and they did not physically fit. i believe they might have a smaller bottle one. can i achieve a tighter, maybe slightly more throaty tone with a power tube change? if so, which direction should i look. i did have a bias pot installed so i have more room to work now. i have Reverend Hellhound combo (2 6L6's, 60W, 1X12) that has Electro Harmonics 6L6's in it. i have read that these tubes are not very good. and in listening i notice that when these suckers are pushed, they get less and less sweet. almost flabby. i was looking the groove tubes site at the CB's looks like i can get a little more power tube distortion out of those. any thoughts or recomendations? johnny5 ... The CB's are Chinese with a softer vacuum, but do have more mids than the EH's .... most 6L6 tube actually do. In your amp my favorite tube is the KT-66HP, that is also now one of the least expensive in the GT line as we dropped price from $85 a duet to $60.00 a duet ( $5.00 cheaper than the Chinese KT-66 we also carry with the price drop now ). I like these with a #5 rating in your amp and in the Dr. Z Route 66 amp (that was designed around this particular tube if you check with them). I also use this in a JTM-45 and a GT Solo 45. Myles[/qb]why are the KT-66HP's your favorate in the hellhound? i'm looking for good rock / blues / rockin blues tone (FYI).[/qb]Its just personal preference. Myles[/QB]

johnny5 ... The CB's are Chinese with a softer vacuum, but do have more mids than the EH's .... most 6L6 tube actually do. In your amp my favorite tube is the KT-66HP, that is also now one of the least expensive in the GT line as we dropped price from $85 a duet to $60.00 a duet ( $5.00 cheaper than the Chinese KT-66 we also carry with the price drop now ). I like these with a #5 rating in your amp and in the Dr. Z Route 66 amp (that was designed around this particular tube if you check with them). I also use this in a JTM-45 and a GT Solo 45. Myles why are the KT-66HP's your favorate in the hellhound? i'm looking for good rock / blues / rockin blues tone (FYI).

Jon, Installing a bias resistor that is adjustable is easy, fast, and cheap. I'd need to see the print to know what value is in there now, but you can probably just call the factory and ask their advice, as they probably do this as special order for a lot of their customers. Jon and/or myles, i also have the hellhound and am curious in your results / sounds. would be neat to be able to use 6L6's OR EL34's though! let us know!

johnny5 ... The CB's are Chinese with a softer vacuum, but do have more mids than the EH's .... most 6L6 tube actually do. In your amp my favorite tube is the KT-66HP, that is also now one of the least expensive in the GT line as we dropped price from $85 a duet to $60.00 a duet ( $5.00 cheaper than the Chinese KT-66 we also carry with the price drop now ). I like these with a #5 rating in your amp and in the Dr. Z Route 66 amp (that was designed around this particular tube if you check with them). I also use this in a JTM-45 and a GT Solo 45. Myles myles, can i just directly replace the EH's with the KT's with out changing anything (considering the amp does not have a bias adjustment))? thanks for the tip, john

i have Reverend Hellhound combo (2 6L6's, 60W, 1X12) that has Electro Harmonics 6L6's in it. i have read that these tubes are not very good. and in listening i notice that when these suckers are pushed, they get less and less sweet. almost flabby. i was looking the groove tubes site at the CB's looks like i can get a little more power tube distortion out of those. any thoughts or recomendations?