JSX EL34 vs 6L6 showdown!

Nebulous

Nebulous

Daniel
Dec 14, 2003
4,536
3
38
Brookfield, VIC, Australia
Finally!
After two years and countless posts and replies about it, I've ordered, fitted and tested JJ 6L6's to my JSX.

As a reference for anyone interested, I made comparo clips along the way, trying to keep it as scientific (haha) as possible. It also solidified in my mind which of the two power tubes I prefer.

First things first, the clips (16, 44.1):

1. http://winterskiesprod.com/Nebulous/Stock JSX EL.wav
2. http://winterskiesprod.com/Nebulous/EL + Bias.wav
3. http://winterskiesprod.com/Nebulous/EL + Bias + JJ Pre.wav
4. http://winterskiesprod.com/Nebulous/6L6 + JJ Pre.wav

The names are pretty self explanitory, but I'll go through the details anyway.
Clip 1 was the stock JSX with JJ EL34's and a mix of EH and Sovtek (PI) tubes. It had the stock bias, which I measured to be 6mA at the "bias test points", but 25mA with a bias probe.
Clip 2 was the same tube combo with the bias (w/ probe) set to 37mA.
Clip 3 was the (stock) JJ EL34's with the bias at 37mA and the JJ pre tubes.
Clip 4 was the JJ pre tubes, with the JJ 6L6's and bias reset to 36mA with the tube selector at "6L6". Note that the bias of the 6L6's was the MAX available on the amp when in the "6L6" mode, while in "EL34" mode the 37mA was just over half way.

An interesting point about the tube selector switch- I accidently did some clips with the EL's biased + JJ pre section with the selector in 6L6 mode. The volume dropped, but it was by far my favourite sound with the EL's in the amp. I deleted these, unfortunately.

The chain for the whole experiment was my Schecter C1-> Seymour Custom -> JSX Ultra channel -> Framus Dragon cab w/ V30 -> SM57 (cap/cone edge, w/ the diaphragm 70% on the cone) -> PreSonus TubePre -> Delta 44 -> Cubase SX3

I attempted to not move the mic or the amp settings for all the clips, so any difference is completely tube based.
When I began, I had the mic set at cap/cone: 50/50. I only moved the mic once or twice and settled on that as it was the first time I'd managed to overcome the plastic and lifeless highend I'd always encountered.

The settings were as follows (all figures out of 10):

Presesnce and Resonance- 5
Master Volume- 2
Ultra channel settings
Treble- just shy of 7
Mids- just past 2
Bass- equally as shy of 7 as the Treble
Gain- 6
Fat switch engaged

I think I've covered everything here now.
FWIW, I actually found that there was more of a difference in the clips when I played them in Cubase than there was after I bounced, which is always the case for me....
In the end, I really prefer the JJ pre tubes over the stock ones. The EL's and 6L6's were good, the EL's prperly biased had a great thrashy growl, but in the end the 6L6's just had less of everything that I would usually EQ out of the tone.


There you go. I enjoyed doing it. I hope people get some use out of this.

Daniel
 
Oh yeah, thanks to Iced Earth for the riff. I recorded it to the original, in standard tuning (pitch shifted the original up 1/2 a step) to no click. Sorry about some of the off playing.

Also, I attempted a TS clip for each power tube, but once biased, I actually didn't like the results of the clean boost. I think more experimenting is needed.

EDIT: Uh, hosting seems to be down at the moment....
 
Without checking out the clips or commenting on anything else, I have to wonder about the issue you mentioned with the clips sounding different in Cubase as compared to outside of it.

What are you listening to the clips on outside of Cubase to make the comparison?

And if you re-import the clips into Cubase, do they sound as you remember them?

And finally, have you tried exporting a clip, then reimporting it back into Cubase on another track while keeping the original recording at exactly the same position on the timeline and flipping the phase to see if they don't null out?

The reason I mention all that is that you may not be actually showing us an accurate representation of what you recorded there. :)
 
Well, the sounding different thing...I notice that a lot as well with Cubase 4 when I bounce projects out. Currently I'm working with a band on a full length and it sounds a lot more like...open and just hi-fi as fuck when it's in Cubase. Which is what they want to production to come out like. But I bounced 4 tracks last night and put them on a cd so I can listen to it in the truck and when I played it in QuickTime right after bouncing I noticed a big difference. When I say big, I mean big to me because I just sat there for an hour mixing it so I can tell right away that it's not the same. In general though it's not a huge difference. I am sure this has something to do with the DAW processing the audio upon bouncing. I'm curious to know if other hosts do this as well. I remember the same thing with PT when I used it exclusively a long time ago. When I worked with Vegas I was always stoned so I didn't notice any differences, but they could've been there. The same thing happened with SX1 and SX3 when I had those.

Neb, if you would like I will host them on my website for you. Zero downtime :)

~006
 
There shouldn't be ANY difference at all. Some players do some pretty wacky things to the sound like resampling, changing loudness, etc.

Like I asked Daniel, if you import the tracks back into Cubase, does it sound different to the unmixed tracks when it plays back? That would rule out the different player thing.

If it does, then I'd import the track at the same place, flip the phase and listen to it with the multitracks playing and see what doesn't null out. If that's the case, there's BIG problem with SX3 - what it exports should be exactly what you're hearing while it's playing (more or less, there'll be some randomizations with LFO based effects like chorus, etc.)

I know that when I mix in SONAR, what I hear playing is exactly what I get exported (whether I use the 32bit or 64bit engine or not), and while I'm not a big fan of Cubase personally, it's still quality software and I'd be VERY surprised if such a big bug with the exporting was actually in there.
 
As a fellow jSX owner, I'm DESPERATE to hear these, get 'em working dude!! :cry: Did you reamp them, by the way?
 
Hm, the hosting problem seems to remain, might have to get in touch with Ermin.com. au (I could have sworn that there never use to be a .au in there before).

As for the "difference in sound", I had a listen back to the Cubase session and the bounced files and turning the bounced files seemed the fix the problem haha. I was just too use to hearing the clips loud in Cubase :p *dumbass*

Metaltastic: Unfortunately I didn't reamp. That would really have made it alot more fair and a shit load quicker (and tighter)!

Guitarhack: I am defiantely happy with the results. I actually think that, while the clips sound very close to what I was hearing in the room, the new tubes added a much more pleasant sound to listen to while playing. I'd almost say that the difference in the room was greater than the clips reveal, especially the bias and JJ pre tubes.

I was just trying to give all the facts at the start of the post, while reserving my opinion for the very end.
 
Overall I prefer the JJ pre tubes but I don't mind either the EL or 6L6. The JJ6L6 seem to be much fuller and less cardboard-sounding in the low-end which sounds nice but they are also slightly woofier (looser) than the EL's (maybe due to the lack of the same amount of lowend in the EL) if that makes sense.
Definitely an improvement IMHO though. The correct Bias alone with the EL's made a big difference.

Listening to them again as I write this dribble :heh:, I now prefer the 6L6. Would be interesting to hear with a TS. Nice tone too. :headbang:
 
Fucking finally hey?

As far as the TS goes, I'd need to find some time to fiddle with the settings. Before the bias, a clean boost was great. Now the clean boost just sounds like overkill. The gain becomes almost a fuzz, and turnnig down the gain (anywhere in the signal) just starts to sound weak and undergained (like, even a .2 "on the dial" change). Very wierd.

After playing the amp for two weeks with the 6L6's, Im definaltey prefering them. I turned the mids up from 2, as used on the clips, to 3 and it's sounding great. Alot more fuller.
 
kaomao said:
Hey nebulous don't post a link with username and password to the ftp webspace, just post the link like this:
www.winterskiesprod.com/Nebulous/Stock JSX EL.wav
www.winterskiesprod.com/Nebulous/EL + Bias.wav
www.winterskiesprod.com/Nebulous/EL + Bias + JJ Pre.wav
www.winterskiesprod.com/Nebulous/6L6 + JJ Pre.wav

they work the same way, but you don't show username and password
Click to expand...

Jees I'm a dick. Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed.

Appologies for any harm caused by that :erk:
 
As a jsx owner who flocked to 6l6's I agree, its amazing how high I have my mid knob now I'm out of el34's. My current ultra channel settings are Treble just under 6, mid around 4 bass around 6 and gain from under 6 to almost 7. Volume to taste, its good to have a blend of master and preamp imo.

I run jj 6l6's, prefered the tone of svetlana's but one went pop, now I'm enjoying the jj's. I run a mess of preamp tubes, tungsol v1, jj longplate v2, chinese 9th gen v3 and pentasonics v4. Love it!
 
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