Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Clean Ch question

[Tubebender]

I bought a '96 USA HRD not too long ago with TAD 6L6 power tubes and JJ preamp 12ax7s. It also has a cheap Weber signature series speaker-50 watt in it.

When I crank the clean channel up to around 5 (very loud practice with a LOUD drummer), it starts to break up, losing that "Fender Clean" with some slight distortion. Is this a trait of these amps to lose the chimey cleans when cranked? It's almost like power tube distortion.
Is this a problem and should it be looked at?
Bias issue? It doesent seem like it's burning up hot.
Could it possibly be the speaker since there is little to no headroom at 50 watts? I was considering an Eminence Texas Heat for it.
Should I worry?
Any info would be appreciated.
Thanks
TB

[JohnK24]

I believe the amp is behaving exactly as designed. It seems to max out on volume around 5/6 on the clean channel volume, then just get more distorted from there, with little volume increase. Do you have the bass or mids set higher than 3/4 ? I play my HR Dlx at home mostly, with the clean volume around 3, bass 3, mids 4, treble 6 using a P90 Les Paul. Any higher on the bass knob and the rumble/mud takes over (I have an Emi RWB speaker in it). To combact this, I use the 2nd input for my GIbby and input 1 for my Fenders. The second input gives you more headroom and tames the top & bottom end. hth

[Tubebender]

Thanks. I had the bass around 3, mid around 2-4, treb at 5 with an '00 ash american hot rod series Double fat strat with a pearly gates in the bridge and a '59 in the neck. Maybe I'll try input 2. And/ or a different speaker. Strange that my other Carvin tube amps don't react like this a high volumes on the clean channel.

[JohnK24]

Thanks. I had the bass around 3, mid around 2-4, treb at 5 with an '00 ash american hot rod series Double fat strat with a pearly gates in the bridge and a '59 in the neck. Maybe I'll try input 2. And/ or a different speaker. Strange that my other Carvin tube amps don't react like this a high volumes on the clean channel.

Definitely try the second input, you might want turn the bright switch ON with 'buckers - it takes a touch of the bass/lower mids out of the mix. Let me know what you think. A Celestion Vintage 30 (or Warehouse Guitar Speaker Veteran 30 clone or Emi Govenor) will really tighten up the bass and help on the headroom, but it will take a certain amount of the "Fender" flavor out of the overall tone.

[Tubebender]

I got home to see that I was on 6.5 on the clean Volume. Thanks for the input again. I just biased this thing from a site Curley showed me at Eurotubes on the HRD. When fully hot it was at 74mA, so I dropped it to 67. I think I have an Unmatched set of tubes as I see the numbers are way off one another, along with one of them being physically longer by a few mm.
I'll also try the 2nd input, but I won't have any results till I can get it outa the bedroom :), hopefully this coming weekend.
Peace
TB