First retube for 6505+, suggestions? (new to tube heads)

[6Christ6Denied6]

I feel it is time to re-tube. I like the tone of my head already but alot of people say if you put the right tubes in these and adjust the bias (which i have no knowledge of) this amp will sound much better than stock. for tonal improvements i would like it to sound less grainy and a little warmer, the gold pin option of eurotubes.com seems like the right choice for me, but then again i know nothing about tubes, im just going by the description on the web site. if i could get some feedback about types of tubes and how they change tone wise that would be great.

 

[budda]

Tubes geared to your sound - Doug's Tubes

email him with your noise problem and see what he suggests. Tung Sol 12AX7 in V1 (refer to schematic), do whatever you want with the rest, enjoy.

 

[6Christ6Denied6]

its been a while since this had peen posted but i still havent chose tubes

i hope to geet some more feedback soon.

 

[IamIan]

I just re-tubed my 5150. I had a lot of noise as well. Put in Mesa preamp tubes except V4, put the Tung Sol in. Cleaned up a lot and got a lot tighter. Then I swapped the power tubes for winged "c" 6l6s and that made a huge difference. I'd really recommend not skimping on your tubes. That little bit of extra cash makes a huge difference.

 

[JPhoenix19]

I just re-tubed my 5150. I had a lot of noise as well. Put in Mesa preamp tubes except V4, put the Tung Sol in. Cleaned up a lot and got a lot tighter. Then I swapped the power tubes for winged "c" 6l6s and that made a huge difference. I'd really recommend not skimping on your tubes. That little bit of extra cash makes a huge difference.

What kind of difference, specifically, did the winged "c" 6L6's make?

 

[shogunate]

^Haven't heard them specifically in a 5150, but winged c 6l6 make the lows extend further but with amazing definition and volume, without crowding the other frequencies. Give a very warm, clean bell like tone to everything else that separates strings quite nicely, and when you slam them with distortion they will fucking ROAR.

To the OP, think of preamp tubes defining the tone of the amp while power tubes dictate more of the feel, if that makes sense. Swapping preamp tubes is the easiest and quickest way to alter an amp's tone, it's just pulling and dropping them in, nothing else needed

The preamp tube that will affect your tone most will be V1, the first tube that the signal hits and that tone will impact all channels. I'm not sure what tubes are in there now but to get rid of that 5150 graininess, I would recommend JJ 12ax7s for V1, or regular JJs in the rest of the positions and something else in V1. The stock mesa tubes are also pretty good at suppressing that kind of hiss. Poke around on here and on the web for reviews of tubes and see what fits your fancy, keeping in mind the the 5150 has that inherent "hair" that you're trying to compensate for.

 

[6Christ6Denied6]

will i have to bias as well for a tube change, also if possible i would get the biased hotter for a warmer tone

 

[Galius]

I would go for a full JJ set, and ive heard a tung-sol in the V1 is killer.

 

[6Christ6Denied6]

i know this thread is 5 months old but i still havent got tubes

anyways was wondering if anybody had tried kt66's in this head?

 

[brodjentle]

eurotubes.com