I am considering two amps. The first being the Victoria Double Deluxe which is both large and fairly expensive, but very nice sound. Second amp is the Swart AST, which is much smaller and a lower price. My problem is the Swart sound is not as nicely balanced as the Victoria (subjective I know) . Has anyone tried replacing tubes with either NOS or maybe 6L6s in the AST? For those that bought the AST did you end up keeping it? Thanks
i have not doneo anthing yet to my ast it is amazing as is , i don't see the need any tube changing except to maybe put some nos tubes in it to make it sound a bit sweeter. right now it sounds great for clean and when i can crank it up, sounds wonderfully crunchy for distorion. something i had not expected when i had purchased it.
I love my AST ....but then again I was underwhelmed with the Victoria Double Deluxe I tried so perhaps we have different tastes. I know Greg V loves 6L6's in his AST feeling he gets a bigger note. I've actually gone in the other direction leaving the 6V6's & putting in a NOS 5Y3 rectifier to lower the volume a bit which I find makes it a little sweeter.
I bought my AST used about 1 month ago. It had the orig JJ 6v6s in it, which were getting noisy. Threw in some NOS RCA blackplates. Sounds great.
I own an AST and have played the Double Deluxe (but only once). +10 on switching rectifer to 5Y3----I am a big Swart fan and would definitely recommend your trying a 5Y3 rectifier and a NOS 12ax7 in V1...Bluetweed made this recommendation a while back and the rectifier switch made a remarkable difference for me, brought out more tweedy qualities, allows earlier breakup...etc. can't go wrong with the Victoria, though...I loved it when I played it...
How much headroom do you need? There is a huge difference in headroom between those amps. If you play with a drummer with a light touch, the AST would be cool. If your drummer is like most I've played with, though, the AST just isn't quite loud enough. Both are very cool, but serve different applications, IMO. Lee
