Tubes for amp breaking up at higher volume?

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riotshield
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Tubes for amp breaking up at higher volume?

Post by riotshield »

I recently got the vox AC15H1TV and I am very satisfied with it, but I have one concern.
The clean sound starts breaking up a bit quite early so I am worried that it might make the sound of OD/Dist pedals a bit kranky. I dont know yet how it sounds with my pedals cause for now I have it at home and pedals are at studio apart a boss OS2 which sounds kranky anyway ;)
What I was wondering is if there is a way to make it break up bit later by changing some of the tubes, but I really do not know about tubes.
The tubes in there are (from website of vox): Valve Complement 1 x EF86, 3 x ECC83/12AX7, 2 x EL84, 1 x EZ81 (rectifier).
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Mike
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Post by Mike »

You could try dropping the 12AX7s to a lower gain preamp tube like a 12AT7 or a 12AU7.

A half and half option is the 12DW7.

This will give you more play in the Gain knob before saturation, but at some point you're going to get breakup, power amp or preamp - it's the nature of the beast - if you have a 15W amp, the Power amp is definitely going to start colouring the sound a little at rehearsal/gig volumes however I don't think it will do so to the detrement of your overdrives, they'll probably sound better as a result to be honest.
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Post by riotshield »

ok, thanks for the advice.
I guess that slight break up is a good thing as well, I am just wonder what if?
btw, I am about to record a demo tomorrow, what is the login info for our utube account?
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Doog
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Post by Doog »

I got a bit more clean headroom by going from EL34s to EL34Ls/E34Ls (seem em mentioned as both names) which have higher plate voltage or something. I wonder if there's a EL84 equivalent?

I'd only worry about it of you need sparkly cleans or use a solo volume booster- running a boost into an amp already starting to clip will just create more gain, not the desired volume hike.

Most pedals sound better with a touch of amp drive anyways, kinda "smears" the line between tube distortion and stompbox distortion.
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