Replacement Tubes for Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue

[RedMosquito22]

The svetlana's you are looking at there are the "new" reissue tubes made by new sensor in Russia. Not that it's a bad thing, New Sensor Corp. bought the rights to use the Svetlana brand and are making them to Svetlana specs.

The real Svetlana tubes are the SED "winged C" ones. They sound fantastic. These are the one's with mojo.

As for 12ax7's...

I have been using the reissue tung-sols and mullards with success. I like them a lot. The mullards seem to be just a little darker to my ears. The Chinese 12ax7c is a nice tube with higher gain than most others being manufactured right now.

Lots of choices!

No doubt on the choices. I am going to go with your advice since a lot of others agree and am going to go with these:

http://thetubestore.com/6l6gc.html

http://www.dougstubes.com/brands/tung-sol-tubes/tung-sol-12ax7-re-issue.html

Look good to you guys?

Another question....Will the amp have to be re-biased with this tube change or will it be ok where it is?

Is swapping the tubes pretty easy because I'd like to avoid paying someone for 5 minutes of work but I also don't want to shock myself.

[JH228]

I have had mullard's and tung-sol's become microphonic on me too. Pretty much all tubes can become microphonic.

It's a guessing game most of the time, wish it wasn't like this but it is.

[JH228]

The svetlana's you are looking at there are the "new" reissue tubes made by new sensor in Russia. Not that it's a bad thing, New Sensor Corp. bought the rights to use the Svetlana brand and are making them to Svetlana specs.

The real Svetlana tubes are the SED "winged C" ones. They sound fantastic. These are the one's with mojo.

As for 12ax7's...

I have been using the reissue tung-sols and mullards with success. I like them a lot. The mullards seem to be just a little darker to my ears. The Chinese 12ax7c is a nice tube with higher gain than most others being manufactured right now.

Lots of choices!

No doubt on the choices. I am going to go with your advice since a lot of others agree and am going to go with these:

http://thetubestore.com/6l6gc.html

http://www.dougstubes.com/brands/tung-sol-tubes/tung-sol-12ax7-re-issue.html

Look good to you guys?

Another question....Will the amp have to be re-biased with this tube change or will it be ok where it is?

Is swapping the tubes pretty easy because I'd like to avoid paying someone for 5 minutes of work but I also don't want to shock myself.

Your tube selection is good. I have a quad of winged c 6l6's in my twin reverb and it's got nothing but tone! You won't be disappointed.

Tube preference is totally subjective. The best thing to do is buy a bunch to audition and then form an opinion. It's not exactly an inexpensive endeavour though!

As for biasing...

Yes, your power tubes (6L6's) need to be properly biased. Your amp will sound its best and you'll have confidence in the performance of the amp. Whenever you install new tubes, this needs to happen to ensure proper operation. I am an amp technician/builder/diy'er...so I have a little bit of insight here.

The reason your amp should be taken to an amp tech is because to properly bias the tubes, a few high voltage measurements need to be taken inside the amplifier. This is dangerous ( 400-500 Volts!). With that measurement the tech will then calculate, based on the plate voltage where your tubes need to be set at idle current. Typically this point is set to 70% of the maximum ratings for the 6L6's. Yadda yadda yadda. This job requires know-how and proper training to do safely. Pay someone a few bucks or learn how and buy the tools to measure bias yourself.

The preamp tubes can simply be installed without any extra biasing. They are fixed bias on the circuit board.

Hope this helps

[RedMosquito22]

Thank you so much!! I do know of a tech, so I will definitely have them installed and re-biased by a pro.