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Author Message   Strings Username: Strings Registered: 01-2005 Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 10:41 am:    Happy Holidays to All! Questions on new tubes. I re-tubed my '74 MusicMan SixtyFive Reverb head with what was in there E34L x 2. My questions are: 1. Do new tubes require a brief break-in period? I got a bit of crakling/popping on warmup (first 30-60 seconds) when I first installed them. It has since tapered off so that almost none occurrs now. 2. Any recommendations for hi-end (expensive?) tubes that truely improve the sound? These replacemnts sounds a bit better/cleaner...but not truely noticable.   Strings Username: Strings Registered: 01-2005 Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 2:50 pm:    **bump**   Tubescorcher Username: Tubescorcher Registered: 03-2004 Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 9:48 pm:    Strings, I have a 30th Anniversary Marshall I just retubed the preamp section. It has 7 preamp tubes 12ax7. I went with jjecc803 in the clean channel and phase slots and ecc 83s in the others. What I'm getting at is these things sound great. They did extremely well in the tube shoot out and were compared to the reissue Mullard tubes which are way expensive. I believe most of your tone comes from the preamp tubes. I believe JJ makes matched sets of EL34's. Check them out. They won't break the bank and they sound great. My Marshall clean channel is more Fender now which is great in my book. Peace!   Tubescorcher Username: Tubescorcher Registered: 03-2004 Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 9:50 pm:    Check this link out!!! Very informative! Read the shootout. http://www.vacuumtube.com/   Strings Username: Strings Registered: 01-2005 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 10:27 am:    Scorch! You're the best! Thanks so much. I did not get the chance to dig in to that site...but I will now. However, I did not readily see a link on the front page to the "shootout" labeled as such. I'll look again. FYI, I did pickup the matched JJ/Tesla E34Ls from the Tube Depot for the power and Sovtek for the preamp. I don't have as many tubes as you (2 power, 1 pre). Unless I should try a different preamp tube, it seems as though I have the right ones in. And, it does sound great. I suppose that, if I want new/different sound, I should look into a new amp. I played my '71 LP Custom thru my luthier's big red Marshall combo (reissue?), and it sounded even better/awesome. So, any other preamp tubes that I should try to shape tone? Also, should I be concerned about that temporary crackle/popping on first few warmups? Thanks Scorch!   Tubescorcher Username: Tubescorcher Registered: 03-2004 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 1:41 pm:    Hey Strings, Mine does some crackling & poping at warm up. I've just dismissed it as normal, because everything runs perfect after the tubes come up to temp. Peace!   Strings Username: Strings Registered: 01-2005 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 4:39 pm:    Thanks again Scorch! I see www.vacuumtube.com has Tube Depot as one of their partners/banners...so I now feel that I was in good hands all along. FYI-Tube Depot has great (seemingly unbiased) reports on each tube they sell and a good testing system to boot! Happy Holidays to you and yours!

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