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Current EL34 Power Tubes For Mesa Rectifier Amp

Charvel1975

Charvel1975

Active member
Has anyone tried EL34 power tube's in their Mesa Single, Dual or Triple Rectifier tube amps? How to they sound? What's a good matched quartet for EL34's right now for the Mesa Rectifier amps?

Thanks in advance!
 
Have done it, sounds cool. Usually just grab whatever I can get cheapest from a reliable vendor who tests the tubes before shipping. EH, JJ, Psvane, etc.

Kohle with the audio test:
 
I have in my Single but not my Dual yet. Plan too. Can't say I like it better but I like it. I've just been buying/experimenting with different JJ EL34s from Eurotubes. EL34 IIs and EL34Ls. Both affecting the lower mids better. I know some people trash JJs but I've had nothing but good luck with them. As a matter of fact, I recently went through my whole collection while biasing my Quick Rod and they are all fine. Same with 12AX7s. I tend to like a darker tone though :dunno:
 
I did it for years, and always had good luck with Svetlana and SED Winged C EL34's.

Two other things to add to that.

If you do it, I also recommend switching the rectifier tubes to a pair of 5AR4's. This will increase punch and presence at louder volumes, and get the power tubes running a bit hotter. It's not quite as aggressive as with the silicon diode rectifiers, but quite a bit more so than the 5URG.

If you want you can run EL34's with the silicon diode rectifiers to see how you like it, but if you do it a lot and run the amp hard it will eventually blow tubes and screen grid resistors. Tbt SS diodes, EL34's, bold power, red cloned to orange on the high gain mode is my favorite distorted tone I ever got out of that amp. It sounds amazingly good.

The good news is if you do like it with EL34's on the ss diode setting you can take it to a tech, and have him pull the stock 2 watt SGR's, replace them with 5 watt resistors, and bias it up perfectly for running EL34's. The 2 watt resistors are fine for running 6L6GC tubes hard, but under spec for EL34's. I blew one pair of tubes before swapping the SGR's, and then had no more reliability issues after the mod for over a decade.
 
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Hiwatts-n-Gibsons said:
I did it for years, and always had good luck with Svetlana and SED Winged C EL34's.

Two other things to add to that.

If you do it, I also recommend switching the rectifier tubes to a pair of 5AR4's. This will increase punch and presence at louder volumes, and get the powet tubes running a bit hotter. It's not quite as aggressive as with the silicon diode rectifiers, but quite a bit more so than the 5URG.

If you want you can run EL34's with the silicon diode rectifiers to see how you like it, but if you do it a lot and run the amp hard it will eventually blow tubes and screen grid resistors. Tbt SS diodes, EL34's, bold power, red cloned to orange on the high gain mode is my favorite distorted tone I ever got out of that amp. It sounds amazingly good.

The good news is if you do like it with EL34's on the ss diode setting you can take it to a tech, and have him pull the stock 2 watt SGR's, replace them with 5 watt resistors, and bias it up perfectly for running EL34's. The 2 watt resistors are fine for running 6L6GC tubes hard, but under spec for EL34's. I blew one pair of tubes before swapping the SGR's, and then had no more reliability issues after the mod for over a decade.
Click to expand...

Interesting.

And I've had great luck with Svetlana and SED =C=
 
I have been using EL34s in my Triple Rec for the last 6 years. It's absolutely killer. I used Mesa branded tubes because I happened to have a bunch on hand but the JJ E34L is great in these amps. Tube Depot runs sales on JJ stuff a few times a year and also does a great job matching them. Let them know they are for a Recto and they will send you the correct bias range.
 
Played across a Triple with EL34s for a decade. I don't recall what tubes he used, but it sounded great. He switched to digital, and even with the same "Amp", it never sounded the same. The imitation could never match his actual amp with the replacement OT and EL34s.

Moral of the story: Build rigs. Don't used cookie cutter presets.
 
Hiwatts-n-Gibsons said:
The good news is if you do like it with EL34's on the ss diode setting you can take it to a tech, and have him pull the stock 2 watt SGR's, replace them with 5 watt resistors, and bias it up perfectly for running EL34's. The 2 watt resistors are fine for running 6L6GC tubes hard, but under spec for EL34's. I blew one pair of tubes before swapping the SGR's, and then had no more reliability issues after the mod for over a decade.
Click to expand...

I was going to mention this too, I ran EL34s in various rectos over the years trying to get them to sound more "marshally" and this was a good solution for me as well
 
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