Question on Removing 2 Power Tubes

[kep1]

I can remove 2 power tubes from a B-52 AT-100 and not cause any problems right? The tone will remain the same and just the power will be reduced right? I hope so. Also, are you supposed to pull the 2 from the outside or what?

 

[espskully]

I can remove 2 power tubes from a B-52 AT-100 and not cause any problems right? The tone will remain the same and just the power will be reduced right? I hope so. Also, are you supposed to pull the 2 from the outside or what?

Shit, you could pull all the tubes and it would still sound great. AND it would be less heavy. But not by that much.

 

[killmachine]

a tube amp can run on at least 1 power tube. Remember this though the power tubes make up that tube sound more so than the preamps. I really don't see the point in removing any of the tubes from a B-52 which my guitar player has it has differnt class settings on the back, which will change your tone a bit and the power. Try the Class B setting.

Also remember that the preamps installed are there for a reason assuming that all the tubes will be in place.

 

[Outlaws]

I can remove 2 power tubes from a B-52 AT-100 and not cause any problems right? The tone will remain the same and just the power will be reduced right? I hope so. Also, are you supposed to pull the 2 from the outside or what?

Pulling powertubes isn't as big of thing as it may sound.

You say you want the power reduced? I assume you mean the volume? Well, even 100 watts down to 50 isn't gonna do a thing for volume.

 

[Farview]

a tube amp can run on at least 1 power tube.

If you ran it on only 1 tube, you would only get half of the waveform. Most tube amps are configured in a push-pull arrangment, where one tube gets the positive half of the wave ant the other tube gets the negative half of the wave.

To answer the question: You can't know for sure without the schematic, but most of the time, you would pull the outside tubes. But like outlaws said, you won't really notice a difference in volume, it will just be more distorted when the amp is decked.

 

[Tadpui]

I have an 80-watt tube combo. At the advice of customer service, I pulled the two outer power tubes to drop it to 40 watts and sure enough there was no noticeable difference in the volume of the amp. But, to kind of answer your question, there wasn't much change in the tone if any.

If you're wanting to drop the power, you'll probably need to use a power attenuator of some sort.

 

[ggunn]

I can remove 2 power tubes from a B-52 AT-100 and not cause any problems right? The tone will remain the same and just the power will be reduced right? I hope so. Also, are you supposed to pull the 2 from the outside or what?

Have you considered replacing your power tubes with THD Yellow Jackets?

http://www.rocknrollvintage.com/proddetail.asp?prod=THD-Yellow-Jackets

I did it with my 50 watt Marshall and it made a big difference in volume, and the amp still sounds great. It only takes a few minutes to do the conversion; you just pull the power tubes and pop in the converters and EL84's.

 

[gusfinley]

wait!!

don't forget to compensate for the impedence mismatch caused by pulling two of the tubes!! It will effectively double the output impedence of your amp. So if you are using an 8 ohm cab, plug it into the 4 ohm tap..

many say this isn't necessary, but seriously, who would plug thier amp into the wrong tap when it was running stock? Pulling two tube double the impedence, so do the right thing and use the right "compensated" tap...