Renegade Head Question ???????

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jerjabs

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Hey everyone, I bought a beautifully taken care of used Renegade 65w head from GC but after a few days of playing noticed some noise and "pop" issues. Mostly on Channel 2. Today I brought the head back to the store where they let me set it up with a new Renegade head so I could A/B them together testing both the 6L6 and EL34 sides although I mainly had the amps both set to the EL34 sides.

The first thing I noticed about the two heads was that the silk screen layout on the left side rear of the heads were slightly different. I'm sure this is because of different production runs. I set the two heads on top of each other and set all knobs mostly to noon and made triple sure all switches were set the same. My Used head has replacement Ruby el34s but all the 12ax7s and 6L6s were stock. On the USED head with the 2 Ruby EL34s, channel 2 seem just a "tad" warmer than the new head, but was popping and noisy hence why I brought it in. When both set on their clean channels, the NEW amp was MUCH brighter and punchy.

After about 2 hours of switching out new Guitar Center Groove Tubes (Power and Pre tubes) into the USED head trying to fix the drive channel noise and muffled clean channel issue to no avail, the manager let me exchange the used head for the new (floor model) head and call it a day. :thumbsup: Super cool guy!!!

Here is my question: I know it is very hard to set all the knobs to the EXACT same positions on the presence and density knobs as they are very sensitive, but could the "warmer" drive tone from the used head been because of the Ruby EL34s? I will admit that getting a new head in exchange for the used one I bought was a bonus....but I did like the slightly warmer channel two of the Ruby EL34 used head. Was their different production runs of this head that had changed voicings? I'm wondering if I should go out and upgrade the EL34s????

Image of silk screen lettering of the two amps. http://i42.tinypic.com/4qpme.jpg

Thoughts?
THANKS! :)
 
Patience... There isn't a lot of traffic on this forum. I'm sure someone will have an answer for you eventually.

Tubes absolutely do make a difference. That's as close as I can come to answering your questions.

Good luck
 
Was their different production runs of this head that had changed voicings?
Click to expand...
No,i don't think so.They made a HG (high gain) prototype but it looks black and is not for sale yet.I have the same head as your used one (i'm based in Europe) .The layout on your new head (back) looks like a US certification label only.In my head (stock), i had RUBY/Egnater EL34's.Different tubes do make a difference but,even with the same tubes,you can change the tone by changing the bias.It makes a lot of a difference if it's cold or hot,for exemple.
 
How would you want to set the bias to make the second channel a bit warmer/rounder?
 
The Egnater manual says that there is a range of acceptable bias settings. I'd set it more towards the hotter end and see what that sounds like.
 
I guess my question is what does "set to hotter side" mean number wise?
 
In my experience with the Renegade,to my surprise,i got a warmer tone with a cold bias:so,for the 5881's:around 60mV and ,for the EL34's : around 65mV. Have fun ! :yes:
 
Hmmm.... Anyone else have the same experience with a "colder" bias setting?
 
It all depends on the tube ,some need more or less for your liking.
Two many varibles to just bias it hot and risk a voltage runaway and melt down, best to use data and your ears.
But information for tubes and how the bias affects them in one particular amp might not be valid in your amp.

The Tungsol el34b tubes i bought were great sounding cold or hot,i chose the lower bias for a longer lasting quad.
Those were a warmer tube with no harshness anywhere !
 
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