Peavey Jsx

Posted in Guitar Amps by admin

Peavey Jsx
What is the difference between guitar amp tubes?

I am looking to replace the tubes in my Peavey JSX. Right now I have a set of EL34's but was just wondering what the difference is between the different kinds of tubes like the 6L6's as opposed to the EL34's. Obviously they have different tones and act slightly different. I mostly play hardcore metal. Does anyone have a suggestion of what I should get?

Generally speaking, EL34's will start compressing the signal at a lower level and go into distortion more easily.

In general, the 6L6's will stay cleaner at higher levels. You really have to push them hard to get them to distort. That said, I know that a lot of metal guys like them because then only have to back off on their guitars a bit to get the sound to clean up.

The original Fender Bassman design that Jim Marshall copied for the original JTM-45 called for 6L6's, but those were not easily found in Europe. So, he used what was readily available...the EL34's. The problem with them was that they were fragile, and when Unicord started importing Marshalls, a lot of them were showing up with broken tubes in them. That's when the switch to 6L6's happened in Marshalls.

Since your amp has adjustable bias, your free to experiment with the two different types of tubes (Marshall's required a modification to be able to switch from one to the other). Just know that the same tube type from different manufacturers will have slightly different tones to them.

Good luck.

Greetings from Austin, Tx

Ken