Modern production valves for a Marshall

ThePrettyDamned

My mate has a jtm 45 reissue that needs new valves. What are the best ones to go for?

He's also considered replacing the first with an NOS valve and the others with solid state plug in types. Will this be any good? Online demos of the plug in ones shown they sound inferior, but only swap them out of v1, which affects the sound most...

He wants pretty reliable and good sounding. He wants to swap the power valves too and keep the current ones as spares.

Voxman

I wouldnt touch the solidstate valves unless you want to lose valve tone and playing dynamics. There are lots of valve options out there and opinions vary on what sounds good. Often its a case of experimenting. JJ, sovtek , electroharmonix and Telefunken are all quite popular.

I retubed my laney cub 12r with JJ tubes but I paid extra for premium grade hand tested tubes for better quality, stability and low microphonics. My cub has never sounded better.

SidNewton

I have a 30 year old Marshall JCM 800 2204. I previously had it valved with JJ's all round (3xECC83 and 2xEL34's). I found the JJ ECC83's (12AX7's) not only sounded harsh but also lacked clarity. I replaced them with Tungsol 12AX7's. The difference is huge. It's the biggest improvement I've noticed in revalving any amp in nearly 30 years of playing to the point that I'd be reluctant to go down the NOS route again, which I've done numerous times in the past.

On the other hand the JJ EL34's are pretty good. That said they've since been replaced with Svetlana Winged C's which are rather good also.

I thoroughly recommend Karltone as a supplier.

Voxman

Doh...quite right re Tungsols Sid; meant to mention them but forgot - very well thought of tube. 

ThePrettyDamned

Voxman;411643" said:

I wouldnt touch the solidstate valves unless you want to lose valve tone and playing dynamics. There are lots of valve options out there and opinions vary on what sounds good. Often its a case of experimenting. JJ, sovtek , electroharmonix and Telefunken are all quite popular.

I retubed my laney cub 12r with JJ tubes but I paid extra for premium grade hand tested tubes for better quality, stability and low microphonics. My cub has never sounded better.

Have you used the solid state ones?

It's not that he thinks they'll be better or anything, but he wants reliability - so he's wondering if v1 is the most significant and therefore if the solid state valves are okay in later positions.

I might recommend he not bother for cost anyway - ss valve replacements are not cheap and preamp valves usually last.

ICBM

Tung-Sols do sound nice, but it's risky putting one in V2 in a classic Marshall. It's a cathode-follower and they have a high failure rate in them, like all the Russian-made 12AX7s. Vox fit the modern AC30s with Tung-Sols in V1 and V3 and a standard Chinese 12AX7 in V2 for that reason.

I have to admit I don't think anything sounds as good as decent old-production (not necessarily hyped brands like Mullard, although they are good) valves in the classic Marshall circuit.

ThePrettyDamned

ICBM;411913" said:

Tung-Sols do sound nice, but it's risky putting one in V2 in a classic Marshall. It's a cathode-follower and they have a high failure rate in them, like all the Russian-made 12AX7s. Vox fit the modern AC30s with Tung-Sols in V1 and V3 and a standard Chinese 12AX7 in V2 for that reason.

I have to admit I don't think anything sounds as good as decent old-production (not necessarily hyped brands like Mullard, although they are good) valves in the classic Marshall circuit.

Okay, cool.

So if he could only have one expensive old valve, where should it go? I'm assuming v1, I've been told that's the biggest one for voicing in most amps.

I think he will leave the solid state things after chatting to him yesterday. It's a shame, I was sort of hoping he could be my guinea pig for them.

ICBM

ThePrettyDamned said:

So if he could only have one expensive old valve, where should it go? I'm assuming v1, I've been told that's the biggest one for voicing in most amps.

I would buy three cheap old valves not one expensive one. You can buy used old valves easily, and they're almost always fine.

All the valves affect the sound - *usually* V1 has the most noticeable effect, but not always - it depends on the mix of valves as well as the amp.

ThePrettyDamned

ICBM;411927" said:

ThePrettyDamned said:So if he could only have one expensive old valve, where should it go? I'm assuming v1, I've been told that's the biggest one for voicing in most amps.





I would buy three cheap old valves not one expensive one. You can buy used old valves easily, and they're almost always fine.

All the valves affect the sound - *usually* V1 has the most noticeable effect, but not always - it depends on the mix of valves as well as the amp.

Classic Internet wisdom misleading me then.

Okay, I'll pass it on. Just eBay for untested mullards? And other old brands? If I find some I might get them, even though I don't have a valve amp as I will have one next year anyway.

Cheers mate!

ICBM

Generally you pay more for Mullards purely because of the name. They *are* good, but so are a lot of other brands.

Brimar

Mazda

Edicron

Pinnacle

ITT

Tungsram

GEC

Zaerex

Siemens

ERA

and various other odd brands! eg Willow Vale

Most of these are relabelled valves from other manufacturers, including Mullard and in particular RFT - very common from the 1970s - which sound great in Marshalls. They're easily identifiable by the slightly fatter bottle, 'wing'-shaped (folded single seam with one rounded edge, rather than the normal two-seam) plates and 'star' shaped mica spacers.

Even some Mullards are relabelled other brands, as well as vice versa. I have a couple of Mullard-branded RFTs, as well as quite a lot of Pinnacle-branded Mullards for example.

ThePrettyDamned

Cool! Willow Vale, what a brand name.



For farm food I'll let him know

jpfamps

ICBM said:

Tung-Sols do sound nice, but it's risky putting one in V2 in a classic Marshall. It's a cathode-follower and they have a high failure rate in them, like all the Russian-made 12AX7s. Vox fit the modern AC30s with Tung-Sols in V1 and V3 and a standard Chinese 12AX7 in V2 for that reason.

I have to admit I don't think anything sounds as good as decent old-production (not necessarily hyped brands like Mullard, although they are good) valves in the classic Marshall circuit.

I've seen an unusually high failure rate with the Tungsols too, so I don't recommend them.

My favourite sounding current production 12AX7/ECC83 is the JJ ECC803s.

This has a reputation for being microphonic, although I've generally not had major issues with it. However I would advise caution installing these into a high gain combo.

thermionic

I put one of JJ ECC803s in my AC15, it was marginally the better sounding of 3-4 current production valves I tried (very little difference).

 

I'm going to look for a NOS bargain now for my Ampmaker N5X - with only one preamp valve I should notice some difference I reckon.

Voxman

ICBM re your comment that V1 usually makes the most difference, I put a Russian electroharmonix 12AX7 in V1 of my Laney VC30 but actually preferred it in V2 where it seemed to give a nicer crunchier tone. Were my ears deceiving me and is it better to have kept it in V1? Your wisdom on the VC30 would be much appreciated.

ICBM

If it sounded better in V2, that's where to put it .

V2 only affects the overdrive channel on the VC30 though.

Voxman

ICBM;412485" said:

If it sounded better in V2, that's where to put it .

V2 only affects the overdrive channel on the VC30 though.

Thanks ICBM...yup thats what I wanted ...to keep the lovely clean channel* as was but to make the distortion channel less dark and a bit more crunchy/marshally which the russian EH in V2 does very nicely. Nice to be reassured I got it right by ear even if I didn't fully appreciate the circuitry. (* I realise that tehnically the VC30 isn't true 2 channel and is footswitchable gain but it was just easier to say channel)

ICBM

No, it's true two-channel - just with some shared parts as well. That's why what you've done works... the first half of V1 is common to both channels, the second half is for the clean channel, and both halves of V2 are a separate audio path for the dirty channel. (V3 is the phase inverter.)

Going from memory anyway, I don't have the schematic to hand right now.

samzadgan

So...@theprettydamned...when is you your NAD with that marshall???

You didnt thing you fooled us with that "my friend" business...

ThePrettyDamned

samzadgan said:

So...@theprettydamned...when is you your NAD with that marshall???

You didnt thing you fooled us with that "my friend" business...

Ha! If only. 

You know I'm going to be going for an MJW though something vintage marshally with a few minor tweaks. 

But that'll be next year

Voxman

ICBM;412682" said:

No, it's true two-channel - just with some shared parts as well. That's why what you've done works... the first half of V1 is common to both channels, the second half is for the clean channel, and both halves of V2 are a separate audio path for the dirty channel. (V3 is the phase inverter.)

Going from memory anyway, I don't have the schematic to hand right now.

Good to know its true two channel, thanks ICBM. Sorry for my ignorance here but what exactly is a phase inverter?

thermionic

It takes the signal from the preamp and splits into to two, with the phase of one inverted with respect to the other. The two "mirror image" signals can then be fed into the inputs of two power amp valves which work out of phase with each other - when one "pushes" the other "pulls" so that in effect, the two out of phase signals coming out of the PI are added up correctly and don't cancel each other out.