Question about tubes. Please Help.

[lespaullover]

I have a guy wanting to trade me for my Budda Superdrive 30 head. He isn't too impressed by the cleans from the videos on youtube, but I know they sound better in person. He wants to know if he can (a.) take out two of the power tubes and run it at 15w instead of 30 because budda amps are so loud and (b.) if he could clean it up even more by taking out the el84s and putting in 6l6s. would that work? The amp does have the auto bias feature so that might help some when it came time to bias 6l6s if it could be done.

 

[big mike]

unless there's something I don't know about with the budda,
I imagine it's cathode bias.

you can't change 6l6 in an amp made for El84's they're a completely different tube base, etc. Just like you can't drop a hemi in a volkswagen.

As for the pull 2 tubes...doubtful.

 

[Peteyvee]

Even if he pulled two tubes, it's not going to be much quieter. In order to halve the volume, you need to drop the wattage by a factor of 10, i.e., a 10 watt amp is half as loud as a 100 watt amp. Most people think a 50 watter is half as loud as a 100 watter and it's not. I'd tell him to either get a less efficient speaker cab (6dB or more) or a good attenuator...

 

[Blue Strat]

Plus if he wants cleaner cleans, pulling tubes is exactly the opposite of what he wants to do. Plus, in EL84 amps, that typically means destroying the remaining 2 tubes.

As Mike said, you can't put 6L6s or ANYTHING other than EL84s in an EL84 amp.

Why would he want to trade for an amp he isn't impressed with? Sounds like a recipe for disaster particularly if there's shipping involved.

If you're trying to sell him on this I think you're asking for trouble.

 

[lespaullover]

No, I'm playing metal and have a Marshall Vintage Modern and this budda. I'm trading him for his EVH 5150 iii. He needs something a little quieter and cleaner. I told him already that of course the cleans wouldn't be as good a a fender or ac-30, but they are good for what type of amp the budda is. I've talked to him about it lot, but we both are very limited in knowledge of tubes and such. I'm confident in him. he just doesn't know what he wants or needs so this is more of a curiosity trade for him.