I also got a Tremover recently, I traded my dual recto 3ch for the tremoverb.
It is absolutely MINT, and I know not a lot af metal player would use the tremolo but I don't play metal exclusively and the tremolo on this thing sounds so fucking warm it's incredibly good.
I've got to agree that this thing doesn't have as much gain as the new 3ch set to channel 3/modern, it needs some tweaking to get a good heavy sound out of it.
I've been doing a tube shootout for the last 2 days, I've had 8 different brand/model of 12AX7 so I tried them all and recorded everything with a reamped guitar track.
Here's what I have:
2 x NOS RCA 12AX7A Shortplate
2 x NOS RCA 12AX7 Longplate
1 x NOS Sylvania 12AX7
1 x NOS Raytheon 12AX7
1 x NOS GE 12AT7 (lower gain than a 12AX7)
3 x EH 12AX7 (I realised that one is dead though)
1 x Mesa SPAX7
4 x JJ 12AX7
I also have about 12 other preamp tubes in my other amp but I use them.
I found that in an ideal world I'd have NOS RCA 12AX7A Shortplate in V1 to V3 but now I only have two of those so they are in V1 and V2 and I use a Mesa SPAX7 in V3.
In V6 I put the NOS Raytheon 12AX7 (I bought this one and the Sylvania especially for the phase inverter, they have been hand picked for this purpose).
The NOS RCA 12AX7A Shortplate really give a good high gain, punchy but smooth at the same time, the JJs are harsh and agressive, the EH are probably the best new production tube for V1 and V2 but in V3 I found the Mesa SPAX7 to be more solid.
Then I started to swap the power and rectifier tubes, running the amp at 50 watt and then at 100 watt, tested every combinasion.
I have 4 Mesa 6L6 and 4 JJ E34L.
2 Mesa 5U4G and 2 EH 5U4GB.
And the verdict is that at 50 watt, using the mesa 6L6, the Mesa 5U4G sounds warm, but in every other application it doesn't deliver, it sags way too much.
I really can't decide what I like the best, I'd love to try some better 6L6 but I don't have any money right now for this.
The E34L gives more gain, more mids, less deep bottom, the cleans are less impressive though, the pick attack doesn't sound the same as it does with the 6L6, it's an overall clearer sound but a little bit harsh, I suspect those JJs.
The 6L6 have a really good clean, fenderish, good lows and highs, when used with the modern channel it seems to be running a little bit too cold though, their break up is not as good as the E34L but they give a more fullrange sound, I think that I'd have to turn up the preamp gain though to compensate for the lack of power tube distortion, otherwise it kindda sound like if I would lower the volume on my guitar, making my distortion less consistent.
After that I tried all kind of spongy/bold, SS Rectifier vs Tube rectifier and with the E34L the spongy setting seems to work better for me, with 6L6 I like bold better, not sure yet about the rectifier.
All m tests were done with every controls at 12 o'clock, I tried to find the best conbinasion to make the amp sounds its best with no tweaking, that's not a great tone like that but at least my jusdgement isn't affected by the tubes reacting differently to different gain and eq setting.
Apparantly the NOS RCA 6L6 are freaking awesome in a mesa dual recto but I'm curious to hear about other people's opinion about different 6L6 and EL34.
The Tremoverb as I understand is still a full-blown dual Rec, so a Tube Screamer of some sort is an absolute must (Drive 8:30, Tone 10:30, Level 11:30), but use silicon diodes (rather than tube rectifiers), bold (rather than spongy), and these settings on the red (bottom) channel:
