Comments on: EL84 vs. 6V6 vs. 5881

By: bill

bill — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:52:40 +0000

I think the issue with the BJr is not excessive high end, but not enough low end to balance it out. That’s what the basic mods do. Tubes won’t help. A darker-sounding speaker might.

By: Daniel Yakel

Daniel Yakel — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:32:51 +0000

So, if I wanted to tame the excessive high end that the Blues Jr has but keep as much clean headroom as possible, would converting to any other tube type help at all? I like a crystal clean amp, then drive it with pedals.

Thanks

By: bill

bill — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:41:05 +0000

The basic mods, TwinStack and presence control will give you far more tonal flexibility. The TO20 output transformer will give it a more professional, “boutique” tone.

By: dan smith

dan smith — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:56:08 +0000

hi Bill,i just got a blues junior and wanted to get more clean headroom and volume from it to use with my archtop for wes,benson,green kind of stuff and i wondered what you would suggest i do to it and just which mods i should use?.regards.Dan.

By: bill

bill — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:43:49 +0000

EL34s draw way too much filament power. No chance.

By: Maxim

Maxim — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 07:57:23 +0000

Have you had any experience using an EL34 output tube pair (or wise advice thereof!), thanks over many times

By: Vince

Vince — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 01:16:54 +0000

Thanks again for the response. Makes me feel better that I’m probably going to melt my amp to the ground! By the way, I just read on Jim Campilongo’s site that he biases his PRs and PRRIs at around 30 per tube. Sounds crazy to me, but he does sound pretty good….

By: bill

bill — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:08:49 +0000

I’m going to assume that your plate voltage is around 375 volts, which is typically what I see in PRRIs. That would make your idle 9 watts, which is fine for the JJs. I generally go for 50mV on the 1 ohm resistor with the JJs, which is 25mA per tube, essentially the same as your setting.

By: Vince

Vince — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:47:04 +0000

Bill, I’m running JJ 6v6 biased at 24ma in my PRRI. Do you think this is okay, too hot? I’ve read that you think they can take abuse, but just want to confirm I’m not pushing things too much. As an aside, do you have a preferred bias for JJ’s in the PRRI? Thanks in advance if you have time to offer your thoughts….

By: Jeff H

Jeff H — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:53:51 +0000

Bill, if I may – the “reference amp” for voicing and tuning of the Stage model Rhodeses at the factory was the Fender Twin Reverb and the speakers in the cabinet of Suitcase models were open on both sides. The Rhodes Stage output was at guitarlike levels and impedances and worked just fine with tube or solid state guitar amps; the Suitcase models and the Satellite speaker cabinet sets used solid state amps.

Prodatlantis might consider an honest-to-goodness FTR or a Dual Showman with the 15s if he wants to stick with classic Fender amps, but your recommendation is still very valid. My brother used a 1970s closed-back Epiphone amp with a single 15″ for his Stage 73.