The Laney Ironheart Owners Thread

[GoldDragon]

Interesting... Maybe I'll give this a shot before I go out and buy another amp. I love my Laney to death but it just doesn't have the saturated oomph that I've been looking for lately. Perhaps this will change that. the local GC has the GrooveTubes ECC83-S in stock, perhaps I'll give it a shot, are there any other high gain tubes you think would work as well if not better price not limiting? And I should just replace V1 and V2 with them right?

Groove Tubes screens tubes (bought from elsewhere), so their ECC83-S are going to be consistently hot and bright. Check their web page.

The Mullard and Tung Sol ax7s are also supposed to be hot, but if you buy them from an online shop that does not grade them, you may not end up with a really hot tube. The Groove Tubes may be 20-25, but they are graded. YOu can go with cheaper tubes and may get lucky, or unlucky. I put a bunch of what I thought were hot chinese tubes in V1 and V2 and the GT ECC-83s was head and shoulders above the rest in output.

The V1 and V2 are the first two gain stages in a cascading design. If you want your amp to have the most gain, put hot tubes in both, although what I did was put the GT in V1 and moved the TAD from v1 to V2. If you have bright tubes in the first two stages, you might want to follow with darker tubes in later stages. The tubes it came with were darker imo so you can probably leave those alone.

Just an fyi, the hotter tube in V1 was worth about "2" notches of extra gain and it was more saturated.

 

[Veritech Zero]

Well they didn't make as much of a change as I thought they would, it has a tad bit more distortion than it did before, and it has a bit more high end as well, but again, not that much changed... I put them in the two furthest left slots (when looking at the amp from the front), those are V1 and V2 correct?

 

[GoldDragon]

Well they didn't make as much of a change as I thought they would, it has a tad bit more distortion than it did before, and it has a bit more high end as well, but again, not that much changed... I put them in the two furthest left slots (when looking at the amp from the front), those are V1 and V2 correct?

What exact tubes did you put in there?

Also, watch this video to see how much gain this guy is getting. It also shows his amp settings, he is getting a very saturated tone with gain on 7 and no boost. Mine was less than this til I replaced V1. If you need more than that, then maybe a Peavey 3120?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loMIsl8Pqq4

With gain on 9 and boost off, I can do Satriani style leads. Lots of saturation and harmonic content. Before the tube swap it was hard to get that gain.

 

[Veritech Zero]

Went with Groove Tube GT ECC83-S tubes in both V1 and V2

And yeah I have no idea how they get their amp to sound like that, mine doesn't come even close... It doesn't inherently sound like there is something wrong with mine, but it doesn't have anywhere near the amount of distortion all of these other ones have...

 

[GoldDragon]

Went with Groove Tube GT ECC83-S tubes in both V1 and V2

And yeah I have no idea how they get their amp to sound like that, mine doesn't come even close... It doesn't inherently sound like there is something wrong with mine, but it doesn't have anywhere near the amount of distortion all of these other ones have...

Alot of the saturation comes from the channel volume and the tone control. Run the channel volume at around 4-5 that is where it forces the output stage to saturate, put the wattage as loud as you can listen to it, then make sure the tone is 5+, even higher. Saturation + harmonic content equals thick lead tone.

Also hot pickups. I use Evolutions.

I know what you mean about the amp, you have to work with the input gain to get the compressed lead sound, but its a plus because you can get dry and tight sounds too. If you want the EZ button lead saturation, just get a 3120 or 5150. Always compressed, always super gainy. THe IRT can be more percussive than a Peavey.

Also keep in mind that technique amounts for alot of it. I used to play EMG81s when I was a beginner to drive the amp harder. Not saying you are a beginner, but a good player gets used to making it sing with less gain. If you want a TON of gain, just get a pedal.

 

[Veritech Zero]

I take back everything I've said. I replaced the Rubys in V3 and V4 with the TAD from v1 and the Ruby from v2 and the amp is a whole new beast...

No idea what the heck was wrong with the other tubes, or how a tube would have to malfunction to cause the problems that I was having, but it seems it is all better now... So weird these little glass tubes are.

So that brings my tube setup to this, v1 and v2: Groove Tubes GT ECC83-s, v3: TAD ECC83, v4: Ruby 12ax7, and v10 and v11: Svetlana EL34. Whew quite the mix and match going on now.

 

[GoldDragon]

I take back everything I've said. I replaced the Rubys in V3 and V4 with the TAD from v1 and the Ruby from v2 and the amp is a whole new beast...

No idea what the heck was wrong with the other tubes, or how a tube would have to malfunction to cause the problems that I was having, but it seems it is all better now... So weird these little glass tubes are.

So that brings my tube setup to this, v1 and v2: Groove Tubes GT ECC83-s, v3: TAD ECC83, v4: Ruby 12ax7, and v10 and v11: Svetlana EL34. Whew quite the mix and match going on now.

I didn't think much of those rubies either. I have an old 12ax7a and a Sovtek LPS is v3 and v4.

The amp is much more fun with gain on tap.

 

[GoldDragon]

Here is the block diagram from the IRT60 Manual.

12ax7s have two gain stages each. I guess v3 is also important to the distortion gain.

 

[Thyrif]

Just got my new GE 12ax7wa v1 and two tung sol 12ax7 's last night and put them in. So much better! More open top end, less harshness, clearer lows and way more pretty harmonics (very clear when playing leads)!

It does get a little bit brighter overall, but I thought it was pretty dark to begin with.

 

[nlaplante]

My current config I'm pretty satisfied is:

V1: Tung Sol 12AX7 reissue
V2: TAD 12AX7-A C Selected (Shuguang high gain)
V3: JJ ECC83S
V4: JJ ECC803S
V10-11: TAD 6L6GC-STR

And yeah, more channel volume and less wattage = more saturation, up to a point where it sounds cold (wattage too low) or fizzy (channel volume too high).

Quote from another forum I just read about PPIMV (post phase inverter master volume), like our Wattage control:

PPIMV's sound best when the amplifier master volume is set no less than half, and the input volume is set high.

Rig-Talk • View topic - Master Volumes, Post and Pre "Phase Invertor....

 

[WJohnM18]

Well I've just bought a 120 Ironheart head that should arrive in the next few days! Can't wait to start trying it out.

One question I have though is: Is the head self biasing?

 

[Veritech Zero]

Sort of? You can't just throw different power tubes into it and have it work. There is however a switch on the back to select the tubes you are going to use. Just set it to what you want, put the new tubes in, and you should be good to go.

 

[WJohnM18]

Sort of? You can't just throw different power tubes into it and have it work. There is however a switch on the back to select the tubes you are going to use. Just set it to what you want, put the new tubes in, and you should be good to go.

I would probably just replace the tubes with another set of 6L6's when the stock ones start to go. So I could just throw a new set in there without having to do anything else?

This is my first tube amplifier so I'm a bit new to how they work exactly.

 

[nlaplante]

So I could just throw a new set in there without having to do anything else?

This is my first tube amplifier so I'm a bit new to how they work exactly.

As long as they're matched you're good to go. You'd have to have it biased by a tech to fine tune it tough. There's a trim pot inside the amp just for that.

 

[WJohnM18]

As long as they're matched you're good to go. You'd have to have it biased by a tech to fine tune it tough. There's a trim pot inside the amp just for that.

Okay thank you. The head arrived this morning and I've already dialed in some nice sounds. The cleans are probably the best I've heard compared to anything I've played through.

 

[nlaplante]

Okay thank you. The head arrived this morning and I've already dialed in some nice sounds. The cleans are probably the best I've heard compared to anything I've played through.

Yeah the clean channel is stellar on this head!

 

[Threadnaught]

Hey, great thread, good read. Interesting to hear everyone's experiences with this amp.

I've got an Ironheart 60H running through the Laney IRT 212 cab, reasonably happy with it but have noticed some high end 'fizz' on the dirty channels.

I've tweaked EQ and gain to where it's less noticable, but tempted to try swapping out the tubes to try and beef up the sound a bit more.

Has anyone else noticed this tendency to fizz? The head I'm using is reconditioned. Wonder if that's the issue.

 

[Veritech Zero]

That's funny, mine has always been too beefy with a lack of fizz haha. Swapping the tubes helped me out, there are quite a few posts a page back or so on tubes to try.

 

[nlaplante]

^ this. I cannot get fizz except when using wattage below ~10% and running channel volume way up and a good amount of gain.

 

[Thrashman]

Tried the 1x12 combo for a short while just the other day..

Needless to say, I'm getting the Ironheart Studio Fantastic piece of gear.