Im going with JJs either way

but what do you think would go best with my ENGL 570 (havent received it yet)

and my ENGL 920 poweramp going into an Avatar cab

i was leaning towards EL84s till a couple days ago when i started to give 6l6's more consideration

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84's in my experience are like really low headroom el34's. Very mid heavy, and compress very quickly, excellent for that kind of blues.
6l6's on the other hand will have far more headroom, have higher highs and lower lows, and wont do the compression thing.
For metal, i'd definately have to go for 6l6's, but if you're doing any vintage blues or jazz jamming, el84's

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EL84's are the lower power version of the EL34. The 6V6 is the lower power version of the 6L6, so you're comparing 2 valve types that aren't directly switchable in an amp. You probably mean EL34s and 6L6's i'd imagine.

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no, my power amp currently runs on EL84s


im pretty sure its possible for it to run 6l6s though

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*make sure* 6l6 and el84's both work on your amp, 6l6s are really big tubes and might not even fit in your poweramp's chassis if it was designed to use EL84's. It might need more than a biasing, so look into that.

El34's break up quick unlike 6l6GC's(used on many old Fender combos which is why they have cleans that stay clean at high volumes). El84's are used a lot on low wattage vintage amps designed to be cranked into power tube distortion, like old Vox and Marshall amps, for dirty blues and rock yes but I don't see anyone using them for jazz, they don't stay clean at loud volumes.

They don't have a great deal of bass so they're probably not ideal for playing metal and stuff. I have 6l6GC's in my engl fireball so I'll suggest that. Just make sure your amp can take them, and get the proper biasing job done.

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EL84's are a lot smaller than 6l6's. Different tube socket sizes. It'd be like a Great Dane trying to ass rape a Chihuahua.

IMO 6l6's are better tubes for modern metal tones. So if you were considering replacing your current EL84 based poweramp in favor of a 6l6(or EL34, KT88, KT66, KT77, 5881, ect..) based poweramp. I would reccomend the switch.

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hmm well actually it was Def(engl guru) on this forum who reccomended me get 6l6s, also this poweramp is pretty huge, 3 rack spaces

im going to call the guy who said he'd retube my amp and ask him about the procedure of switching EL84s to 6l6s, i like how my el84s sounded when they were fresh, but sometimes when having the amp cranked with all the gain it started to sound muddy and a bit overloaded, i need something with some more head room i think



also, ive actually heard some great jazz tones out of an EL84 amp!
my guitar teacher www.iantoms.ca uses a fender classic with el84s i beleive
Sick player he is

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Well if the power amp does run on EL-84s the only way you could run 6L6's is to have the tube sockets replaced and most likely have the output transformer replaced as well. EL-84's have the same pin layout as 12ax7's. But there is no way a 3 rack space power amp runs on tiny EL84's, are you sure you arent getting 84's and 34's mixed up?

EDIT: Yea you did have them confused, sqol was right, I tracked down an old E 920 manual, the amp runs on EL34's, not EL84's. In which case yes you can run 6L6's, as long as there is some sort of bias adjustment, EL34's draw a lot more current than 6L6's.

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whaaat! no way

Oh my fuck, i feel stupid, i must of mis read that manual!


but this is a good thing because this means i can replace my poweramp with 6l6s! no problem!

FUCK YEAH

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