Replacement valves for old Ampeg VT-22

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simon4

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My old ampeg recently died on me, as it it turned out the transistor had to be replaced. When doing this the engineer pointed out to me that one of the valves was going. Being old the amp takes 7027a valves which are pretty hard to find but I have managed to track them down. Trouble is they are really expensive, particularly the original ones.

My question is whether anyone has had a similar problem and if so are the newly made valves Harma etc (about half the price) any good or am I better off buying the original valves?

Also I only really need the one valve but have been told that I need to get a matching set of four, is this true or is it just a money making scheme by the valve makers?

Thanks
 
simon4 said:
My old ampeg recently died on me, as it it turned out the transistor had to be replaced. When doing this the engineer pointed out to me that one of the valves was going. Being old the amp takes 7027a valves which are pretty hard to find but I have managed to track them down. Trouble is they are really expensive, particularly the original ones.

My question is whether anyone has had a similar problem and if so are the newly made valves Harma etc (about half the price) any good or am I better off buying the original valves?

Also I only really need the one valve but have been told that I need to get a matching set of four, is this true or is it just a money making scheme by the valve makers?

Thanks
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Yes you will want to buy a matched set. Tesla/JJ makes pretty good tubes but I have never used that particular tube type [7027a].
http://store.triodestore.com/6l6typ5875kt.html
 
I have 4 old 70's Ampegs ..... a VT-22, a VT-40 ..... a V-4 and a ReverbRockett.
One cool thing about them is you can drop in other tubes with no modification. A 6L6 will work just as well. You can also use KT-88's and 6550's. You can not use EL-34's without a mod.

But 7027's aren't that hard to find right now and I prefer to use them in the Ampegs.
The earlier link or tubesandmore.com or thetubestore.com all have them for about $20 a pop.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. Unfortunately Im in the UK so I will probably get the tubes from this side of the pond to save the possibility of something going wrong in transit.
The tubes are a lot more expensive over here though with the RCA and GE ones being about $60-70 for just one tube. I may go for the cheaper option of Harma ones which are about half the price and hope the tone doesn't suffer much. Have either of you had any experience with these or do you think there won't be much in it in terms of sound ?

Thanks
 
I haven't used the Harma stuff but:

Would 6L6's be cheaper?
A 7027A isn't anything but a mil-spec 6L6 basically.
And the Ampegs will work fine with 6L6's.
I don't have time right now but I'll get a link to a site that explains it.
But basically you can use 6l6's and it should sound exactly the same.
I'll look for that link tonight.
 
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