looking after a tube amp

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andydeedpoll

i do love smilies...
hullo! :)

i'm thinking about wandering to a few shops in the next few weeks, possibly to buy quite probably the peavey classic 30. the one in the shop i've already played sounded nice to my ears, and already had the tube guard on it.

i'm worried though, that i'm going to be taking on quite a lot of pain/stress with a tube amp (this would be my first brand new amp purchase, and certainly my first tube amp!). but a bit of me says i'm not the first to use one :p - just how much extra work can they be in comparison to solid state? as long as i don't kick it over, and let it warm up and cool down and stuff, and make sure it's secure when it's being transported, i should be alright, yeah? assuming there isn't anything actually faulty in the amp from the outset.

basically - convince me i want a tube amp! :p

any thoughts?

Andy.
 
andydeedpoll said:
hullo! :)

i'm thinking about wandering to a few shops in the next few weeks, possibly to buy quite probably the peavey classic 30. the one in the shop i've already played sounded nice to my ears, and already had the tube guard on it.

i'm worried though, that i'm going to be taking on quite a lot of pain/stress with a tube amp (this would be my first brand new amp purchase, and certainly my first tube amp!). but a bit of me says i'm not the first to use one :p - just how much extra work can they be in comparison to solid state? as long as i don't kick it over, and let it warm up and cool down and stuff, and make sure it's secure when it's being transported, i should be alright, yeah? assuming there isn't anything actually faulty in the amp from the outset.

basically - convince me i want a tube amp! :p

any thoughts?

Andy.
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I don't know what you are talking about. There is no extra work involved. The only thing you will have to do is replace power tubes once in a while. That all depends on how much you use it and if you really crank it. I've had my dual rectifier for about 13 years now and that thing is a tank. My buddies peavey xxx got kick off a 5' stage. Plugged it in, good to go. Buy a well made piece of equipment and you won't have any problems.
 
I would steer you toward a Fender if your really wanting a tube amp.
Perhaps a hot rod deluxe or even better a 65 deluxe reverb reissue.
I played them both before I got my supersonic which is a little more
versatile.

Actually I think a tube amp is a little more forgiving especially if you
have a bad speaker cable or somthing your transistor amps will fry in a
couple of seconds.
 
HangDawg said:
I don't know what you are talking about. There is no extra work involved. The only thing you will have to do is replace power tubes once in a while. That all depends on how much you use it and if you really crank it. I've had my dual rectifier for about 13 years now and that thing is a tank. My buddies peavey xxx got kick off a 5' stage. Plugged it in, good to go. Buy a well made piece of equipment and you won't have any problems.
Click to expand...

My Mesa F-100 fell out of a moving van because of the drummer. Plugged it in and STILL haven't done anything to it 2 years later, although I don't play it very much anymore. A few months later I did a 180 to Sound City and haven't looked back.
Oh, let it warm up for a couple minutes before you play.
 
and let it cool a bit before banging it into doorjambs and stuff
 
ummmmm.......don't touch the glowy thingys in the back?


cheers,
wade
 
Try not to let drunks pee or puke on it! True story on the pee part.. Years ago a Drunken hottie wizzed all over my twin while it was on standby during a set break.... wish I woulda left it powered during that break......

Also, the Peavey Classic Line is a great choice for a tube amp if you are worried about reliability. We see alot more circuit board fender amps go south than the peaveys. Lots of options out there though check em all out!
 
Weird about more reliability in Peaveys than in Fenders since I've heard so much about the sockets on Peaveys getting damaged since they're soldered to the PCB. That said, the guitarist in my band has a Peavey VTX and it sounds great. I had to replace a couple of transistors in it but other than that it has been basically 0 maintenance. He's also got a Laney Pro AOR 100 head that hasn't needed any work so far. On my Musicman I've had to bias it twice, and the second time it turned out that it didn't even need a bias. Just got a Windsor and I doubt it'll need any work any time soon (though it will definitely be getting a set of JJs once money comes in). On the other side of things, my Flextone II HD lost an output board, which put a ton of stress on the transformer. When my other guitarist also had a Flextone II HD, a 4 ohm mismatch led to one side of it blowing up, so we ported the working side over to my amp and now it's working fine (for awhile at least). Oh yeah, and when I had a Peavey XXX, it was run over by a Ford Explorer and survived. None of the tubes were damaged (though they were quite microphonic afterwards). Most of the case survived and the chassis was only bent in the front. I can't give enough praise to tube amps.
 
If anything, tube amps are easier to work on when something DOES go wrong.
 
Hey Andy, I own a Classic 30 head and a Peavey Classic 1x12 extension cab. It works and sounds great. It is road worthy and sounds cool. The reason I went with the head is because I love plugging it into different cabs.
It is a great way to have a pallete of different tones. ;)
 
Flamin Lip said:
We see alot more circuit board fender amps go south than the peaveys.
Click to expand...
Unless you get into the Custom Shop stuff, new Fenders can be problematic .... they use these computer type multiconductor ribbon cables to connect the pre amp and the power section .... in the Hot Rod deVille it was three of them that had either 6 or 8 conductors per ribbon.
If you don't move the amp around much it's all just fine .... but if you gig everynight the stiffness of those ribbon cables and their weight being suspended by their ends causes vibrations from rolling down the hywy and the unavoidable banging around that gigging amps get, to fracture the solder joints. Fixable fairly easily actually except it's a pain in the butt to get to the joints. You have to pull all the knobs and drop the whole preamp section out of the amp to get to them. Last time my amp did that I yanked those ribbons out and replaced them with sperate wires. Then I had to fine tune how they ran because some of them had to be seperated from each other to avoid noise and hum.
 
andydeedpoll said:
hullo! :)

i'm thinking about wandering to a few shops in the next few weeks, possibly to buy quite probably the peavey classic 30.
Click to expand...

Got one. They're cool.
 
i'd ask around for a builder in your area and see what he could do for you. the average tube amp is much more serviceable than the average solid state amp when something goes wrong, and it will eventually.
 
:) :)

thanks for all the replies, everyone. i'm glad to see such a conensus on the 'get a tube amp!' thing :p

i was only really going on the impression i've been given by talking to people and reading posts that you have to be more careful with a tube amp, and that they have to be serviced and things much more regularly, basically babied a lot more. i obviously look after equipment i buy (i can't afford much, so i have to be careful with what i buy - i'm sure there's a lesson in there, somewhere :p) but i was worried that it was going to be more trouble than it was worth!

i'm tempted to hop on a bus right now, actually :p

Andy.
 
Anyone know about the build quality on the newer Traynors? Used to play through a buds Traynor twin and it had tone for days, but I think it was a 70s model. Pretty good bang for the buck from what Ive heard.
 
The new Traynors are well built and more reliable then the older ones. Give them a try and see what you think. :)
 
hoops said:
The new Traynors are well built and more reliable then the older ones. Give them a try and see what you think. :)
Click to expand...

The Yorkville ones yes, but not the Pete Traynor-era ones.Those things were fantastic.
 
The Yorkville ones yes, but not the Pete Traynor-era ones.Those things were fantastic.
Click to expand...

They were great sounding. I do agree. I heard thier design were a little dangerous though on some models.
 
most of the problems you hear about them have to do with not rebiasing when you replace the output tubes and/or running it without a speaker (or equivelent load) on it...

one thing to watch also is dont buy more output than you need... part of the tube sound comes from running it full tilt... and if you have to turn down to balance with your bandmates it kinda defeats the purpose... most bar bands 50wts is more than enough... a buddy of mine recently got one of the 32 wt crate things... it's probably one of the most versatile amps out there right now... he's been able to dial it in reguardless of genre...(jaz/blues/rock/metal) i also recently played with a guy who just bout a small boogie it's only like 20 wts but it screams....
 
THD Univalve. That's it...low power, all tube, single ended, hot plate built in, no-tech tube changer's dream come true.

Check it out.
 
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