Twin Jet owners - Power tube preferences

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bionicmark

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Hi guys! What brand power tubes are you having the most success with?

Which brand of KT88's are finding sound best in your Twin Jet?


Thank you!
 
Gold Lion KT88's. GL KT77's were nice and Winged C 6550. The 6550's are a little softer than the 88's and break up nicer. You would need to piggyback a resistor for 77's but you might get away with the 6550's if you want to try.
 
JJ KT88s in mine, although SED 6550s worked nicely too.
 
Thank you guys..
Currently all mine are stock.

How much of an improvement on sound with the JJ KT88's?

Going to try some TAD 7025 high grade pre amp tubes as well.
 
Big difference. Less mud, more clarity, it got more articulate. It's a whole new ballgame when you replace those crappy Sovteks.
 
For the TJ, I went with =C= 6550

Had a good few sessions with it loaded with these before I left for a couple years to surf.

I'm back now and just replaced the pre section on my TJ - the 6550s are staying put. Killer bottles for this head IMHO.

Rolled some new pre's in the front - will see how they settle in and play out. Stay tuned.

But up front and center - the 6550s in my opinion (of owning, what, 3 or 4 TJs over the years?!?!?) are the sweetest sounding bottles that still offer full-slaughter-assualts as a replacement to the KT88s.

YMMV. My 20thSheevs still has the stock KT88s in it and it's blissful. So - different amps, different glass, everything changes platform to platform.

Mo
 
Yeah, I too liked the Winged C 6550s in the Twin Jet. The mids came out a lot more. It lost some of the low end though, and they are prohibitively expensive, which is why I replaced them with JJ KT88s.
 
leib10":2bexzu1g said:
Yeah, I too liked the Winged C 6550s in the Twin Jet. The mids came out a lot more. It lost some of the low end though, and they are prohibitively expensive, which is why I replaced them with JJ KT88s.
Ya, I think I sneaked my order of various SED bottles in just as word got out they were going to be on the rise in price... Lucky, but sad for anyone now wanting these quality bottles - stoopid pricing :doh:
 
I have 4 Gold Lion KT88's laying around, those JJ's sound interesting leib10, but winged C 6550's are worth a look? I might try those Gold Lions tonight.

What are you guys using in your preamp section? Or did you stick with the TAD 7025?
 
Holy shit... 6 hours of tube rolling.

As to your question regarding the TJ (in particular)
- Kept the 6550s in there, they just needed a biasing tweak
- Believe it or not, was undecided to go with the Jan-GE 5751 in V1 or a nice clean Ei Yugo ECC83
- Went with the 5751, it opened the amp up perfectly
- LPS in the PI slot
- TAD 7025S in the others

The difference the 5751 made, given that it's supposed to be, what, 70% the gain of a normal 12AX7?? Don't know - but the amp had this immediacy to it with said tube in V1. Just punching hard knocking immediacy. I also noticed (Purple Mod, BTW) where Ch.1 left off, Ch.2 easily picked up... I preferred Ch.1 over Ch.2 for most of the testing I did, but I know with fiddling more on the EQ, I can get Ch.2 to blaze. I was just stunned at how incredible Ch.1 sounded with this lead preamp tube in place. Dead quiet - and then explosive thunder with fantastic clarity.

Done. I'm f*cking dizzy now :lol: :LOL:
Mo
 
Ok those Golden Lion KT88's made a nice difference. I cranked the volume on it and drove the gain and they're definitely better than the Sovteks that were in there.

Now for the pre. I have 6 Tung-Sol re-issues and 6 Gold Lion ECC83/B759's to try out.
 
I installed the whole pre with Tung-sol 12AX7's and it went very well. Hum in the amp was reduced noticeably, there's more punch and attack that is clear.

I'll try the Gold Lion ECC83/B759's, I'm very curious what these do compared to the Tung-Sol since the Gold Lion is listed as an upgrade for the TJ.
 
I'm interested in the rolling from Tung Sol to Gold-Lion. If you've installed them flush across the board - for sure it'll be a mega improvement over the previous glass in there... For the most part, you really only need to worry about V1 to V4 as they're the tone shaping sockets. V5 and V6 are loop and phase inverter.

Happy rolling :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock:
Mojo
 
Ventura":1g2lwh49 said:
I'm interested in the rolling from Tung Sol to Gold-Lion. If you've installed them flush across the board - for sure it'll be a mega improvement over the previous glass in there... For the most part, you really only need to worry about V1 to V4 as they're the tone shaping sockets. V5 and V6 are loop and phase inverter.

Happy rolling :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock:
Mojo

I installed the Gold Lion KT88's first and the power section was wonderful. They did add a small amount of hum to my rig but it wasn't anything concerning yet it exposed the weak preamp tubes that came stock with the TJ. 12AX7B China is all that is written on those pre tubes. I replaced them with the Tung-Sol 12AX7's and the hum was gone, attack was sharp, tone was aggressive and they were an obvious improvement over the stock tubes in every way.

Lucky for me I just happened to have Gold Lion ECC83/B759's sitting around. 6 of them. I loaded the TJ with all 6 GL's in the pre and noticed some hum came back, +1 to Tung-Sol for being the quieter high-gain pre tube, the GL's also had no tolerance for sloppy play. They exposed every fuck up of mine clear as day without mercy so I had to slow down and went with easier riffs to play and the GL's have as much grit and bite as the Tung-Sol's but they do have a cool voicing that I really enjoyed. Both preamp tubes have their own sound that they bring to the table so at this point it comes down to preference. I need more time with the Gold Lion's though, there's a lot more sound in those things.

Ventura I love what you are doing please keep us posted.
 
Ventura this is how this morning's GL test went. The entire Twin Jet is loaded with Gold Lion's so I turned the master volume just shy of noon, master and channel presence was kept about 9 o'clock, channel 2 volume 10 o'clock, Treble 1 o'clock, Mids just over 3 o'clock, Bass I kept slowly rolling back and stopped at 1 o'clock. To eliminate the small hum the GL's unfortunately added I again had to keep rolling back the gain to 12:30. The nice thing about doing that is there was still plenty of gain to go around and the hum went away. For me the TJ was screaming like the angry aggressive amp it's supposed to be.

I'm still unsure of where to set the master and channel presence and I still have to do some tweaking to get it where I want it. However be advised guys Gold Lion KT88's will bring the hum to high gain settings but throttling back on the gain with GL's loaded does not take away from your tone it adds to it. Lowering the gain even eliminates the hum. I know big surprise right? The GL's also responded to a healthy dose of mids! Your frequency range has opened up and there is more sound for you to use.

There are some concerns with GL KT88's not lasting in the TJ and Penta's and JJ's are often recommended as alternatives with Penta being the most popular choice. I'm gonna run with the GL's until they take a shit, we'll see. I happen to enjoy their voicing. Overall this retubing of my TJ was a total success.
 
Last JJs I ordered and installed lasted 5 minutes before one popped (EL34-II model tube).

To each their own... The GL-ECC83 are HG Russian 12AX7, likely the same as the LPS, Tung Sol, etc. Maybe a few others out there too. If there's a hum - it can be one of any 6 (or five) preamp tubes - not necessarily "all" of them. And as for the powertubes, well, some hum and some don't, the more the volume, the louder the hiss.

Only real thing I've noticed for me was my introduction of the Jan-GE 5751 into V1 on my TJ. That was the money shot.

HAPPY ROLLING!!!!! I hope to get back to my axes today and practise Smoke on the Water, Back in Black, Paranoid, Freebird and Stairway to Heaven. No one seems to ever play these songs or their inherent chops.... Beats me :dunno:

I keeeeeed... :hys:
 
I have the Valve Queen hunting for Penta KT88's so until I hear about them and if I can buy them or not my preamp experiments will have to wait. Regardless I am enjoying my TJ.
 
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