Louder Tweed Deluxe with 6L6?

[CharAznable]

I think I've found my tone with my 1954 Tweed Deluxe. I love it, love it, love it. When I'm sitting at my desk sometimes I turn around just to stare at it. When I play it, sometimes I just have to stop and absorb what I just heard. It's truly a gem.

However, it's not really a practical amp to carry around to practice and gigs because:

a) It's not loud at all. It can't keep up with a drummer. The amp is supposed to be touch sensitive, but you don't really get to enjoy that because you're banging on the strings as hard as possible only to hear yourself.

b) It's my preciousss. Nasty hobbitses might spill their beer on it at a gig. Now, It's an amp, made to be played and all, but I'd rather have it be my *recording* amp.

So the question is:
Does someone make a clone that has the exact same circuit but made to take 6L6s?

I know Neil Young just sticks 6L6s in his and has a fan pointing at them, but I obviously don't want to put the 55 year old transformer through that strain.

[chrisgraff]

I would talk to Adam at Tungsten about his Crema amp. He might be able to accomodate 6L6's.

The Crema is his new beefed up design of tweed deluxe. It sounds fantastic. Very much like an old tweed deluxe, but without the mush (when pushed to hard).

Adam Palow
(352) 250-3939
Tungsten Amplification (http://www.tungstenamp.com/)

PS No affiliation whatsoever. Just heard the amp at the Nashville amp expo, and loved it.

[Billm]

The Weber 5E3 Proluxe is a souped-up 5E3 design that will put out 35 or 40 watts and sounds heavenly with Tung-Sol reissue 5881s. On input 1 it does all that touch-sensitive stuff that a 5E3 is supposed to do; on input 2 it's a clean machine with surprising amounts of headroom on tap. I added another stage of filtering to the Weber design and built an offboard bias supply with two stages of filtering for really silent operation.

http://fenderforum.com/userphotos/photo.php?id=42832

[JCM 800]

+1 on the Weber Proluxe. Turns the 5E3 into a plenty loud amp! I even used it outdoors once and it was more than enough to keep up.

[DeaconBlues]

You can also swap in a 5v4 rectifier and a set of JJ 6V6S tubes. This will tighten up the amp and give you more headroom. Might keep up with a drummer that way.
I can keep up with a decent drummer with my stock Clark 5E3 without the 5V4 and JJ's.

[ezyrydr]

Your quest is not uncommon. Check these out:

Richter Supra-luxe
SDG Proluxe
Victoria Double Deluxe

[Sanj]

This one does exactly what you are looking for:

http://www.louisamps.com/content/buster.asp

purpose built with 6L6's ..

-Sanj

[Curly]

FYI,
I have a Louis Electric Deluxe Buster.
It's a great amp, and is a bit louder at 20 watts or so, however, I didn't post earlier ... it's also fixed bias, which to me puts it somewhere between a cathode biased Deluxe and the larger, fixed bias Super/ Pro/ Bandmaster amps.

very giggable amp, especially if mic'ed.

[phoghat]

Check out the ValveTrain 427. 2x5881 tubes, cathode bias, 5u4 rectifier. Best amp I own. It comes in a bunch of combo or head/cab configurations. Personally, I use it in a head/2x12 setup. Here's a link:
http://www.valvetrainamps.com/vt427.htm

[cbguy]

Talk to Henry Heistl at Red Plate amps. I don't know if his cuircuitry is an exact clone but his tweed clones sound fantastic and can weigh in at around 30+ pounds.

http://redplateamps.com/Price.html

[Trout]

Tweed Deluxe with 6L6's?

Richter Supra-Luxe 30W.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOg4GqsUS1o

[Nolatone Ampworks]

I would talk to Adam at Tungsten about his Crema amp. He might be able to accomodate 6L6's.

The Crema is his new beefed up design of tweed deluxe. It sounds fantastic. Very much like an old tweed deluxe, but without the mush (when pushed to hard).

Adam Palow
(352) 250-3939
Tungsten Amplification (http://www.tungstenamp.com/)

PS No affiliation whatsoever. Just heard the amp at the Nashville amp expo, and loved it.

+1 on Adam's La Crema. It was one of my favorites of his. He does stellar tweed type amps, but that one has something special with headroom and without the "wide open at 9 oclock" tweed deluxes are know for.

The key to getting 6L6's to work in a tweed deluxe is:

1) power transformer: needs to be able to handle the extra current
2) output transformer: It needs to have the 5k primary for 6L6's.

The my Superbug model does this, but if you want straight up tweed deluxe style topology, talk to Adam. He's got it dialed in!

[jumpnblues]

And the award for the perfect small to medium venue amp (for me) is...Louis Electric Tremblelux. It's not 6L6 but can be made that way. However, the 6V6s are plenty loud and extremely sweet. Incredible sounding amp. Try one with a Scumback M75 (65 watt)...sweetness, sweetness, sweetness. You can hear one in the clip below with a Scumback H75.


Tom

[derekd]

Your quest is not uncommon. Check these out:

Richter Supra-luxe
SDG Proluxe
Victoria Double Deluxe

Agreed. I have a Lil Dawg 5E3 Deluxe that runs 6L6s at 22 watts. Yummy amp at an affordable price.

Throw Clark amps in the mix also.

[jumpnblues]

I would like to try one of BillM's amps someday.


Tom

[mcinku]

I own a Ceriaton 5X3 amp which is fitted with some big iron, 6L6, GZ34 tubes and I also added so called 'Bruce Collins Vol/Tone Mod.' My amp can push 26W of clean power which is enough to keep up with the band.
I use Celestion Gold with the amp and let me tell you, it just can't sound any better.

Here's a Ceriatone link...
http://www.ceriatone.com/productSubPages/AC5X3BigDeluxe/AC5X3Complete.htm

and this is my amp...
http://freeweb.siol.net/mcinku/images/guitars/5E3.jpg

BTW... I just replaced the stock OT with some 50W 6L6 OT and man, that change considerably increased clean headroom of the amp.

[hardys]

Agreed. I have a Lil Dawg 5E3 Deluxe that runs 6L6s at 22 watts. Yummy amp at an affordable price.

Throw Clark amps in the mix also.

I just got the Lil' Dawg and it sounds great with 6L6s & a 5AR4. Nice thing is if I want it to break up at lower volumes, I just pop in some 6V6s & a GY3 and I'm good to go!

[joek86]

I have a Greer Underdog 15 coming in a couple of months with a "mod1" hotrod feature. It's suppose to be louder than the standard Tweed Deluxe but I can't tell you first hand.....

~Joe

[smolder]

Your '54 (as is my wide panel) is probably a 5C3 and not a 5E3 fwiw