Can power tubes such as EL34 produce high gain distortion like a Mesa preamp?

[printer2]

No need to use a 34, use an 84 instead. Much cheaper tubes and for power supply requirements. Need three to five times the number of tubes to get the same amount of gain. Heck, why not use a smaller output tube, say a 6AK6? miniscule heater amperage, cheap enough tube. Just need a lot of 7-pin sockets. Should have stocked up on them when they were cheaper.

How about using a 6AK5 instead of a output tube? A small signal pentode in each triode position?





Mind you, this was just an experiment to run on low voltage. Wonder what would happen upping it?

[thinkingchicken]

No need to use a 34, use an 84 instead. Much cheaper tubes and for power supply requirements. Need three to five times the number of tubes to get the same amount of gain. Heck, why not use a smaller output tube, say a 6AK6? miniscule heater amperage, cheap enough tube. Just need a lot of 7-pin sockets. Should have stocked up on them when they were cheaper.

How about using a 6AK5 instead of a output tube? A small signal pentode in each triode position?





Mind you, this was just an experiment to run on low voltage. Wonder what would happen upping it?

Small-signal pentodes will be much more suitable. The smaller the tube, the easier it is to distorted hence smaller tubes are somehow sound more distorted than their bigger cousins. Not sure if this is true though By using small-signal pentodes, this will be the closest representation of how will the larger pentodes (i.e EL34 and EL84) sound like if they are used as preamp tubes.

Is that yours?

[JD0x0]

Starve the plates with VVR and you can get a ton of clipping. Albeit, might not sound the best, usually the tone gets mushy and compressed with starved voltages. Those little VHT Special 6 Ultras can scream on the 'clean' channel if you roll back the VVR the power tube clips a lot. The preamp B+ actually goes up, so the preamp goes cleaner while the powertube distorts a lot.

[teemuk]

No. I do not regard Russell Hamm paper a good source. It's not technically incorrect but unless it's read with a very thorough understanding (especially understanding limited choice of equipment he tested and its general bias towards certain types of circuit architectures) there's a great chance to draw conclusions out of it that do not apply at all in general. I've seen that happen many, many times.

Hamm as well fell into that trap, by the way, and his conclusions were actually critisized, even rebutted, rather quickly. You should find and read those papers as well.

[thinkingchicken]

No. I do not regard Russell Hamm paper a good source. It's not technically incorrect but unless it's read with a very thorough understanding (especially understanding limited choice of equipment he tested and its general bias towards certain types of circuit architectures) there's a great chance to draw conclusions out of it that do not apply at all in general. I've seen that happen many, many times.

Hamm as well fell into that trap, by the way, and his conclusions were actually critisized, even rebutted, rather quickly. You should find and read those papers as well.

If you can recommend some decent sources about guitar amp distortion, resulting waveforms, differences between tubes, etc. What are the titles? I found several sources which I think maybe are good but still not sure.

[teemuk]

Free stuff:
https://www.ampbooks.com
(See sections titled classic circuits and technology)
https://robrobinette.com/Voicing_an_Amp.htm
https://robrobinette.com/Tube_Guitar_Amp_Overdrive.htm
(Other good stuff too)
The Preamp Stages: how they sound and why thread on this forum is also great reading.

Then of course books from Morgan Jones, Kevin O. Connor Richard Kuehnel and Merlin Blencove

[printer2]

No need to use a 34, use an 84 instead. Much cheaper tubes and for power supply requirements. Need three to five times the number of tubes to get the same amount of gain. Heck, why not use a smaller output tube, say a 6AK6? miniscule heater amperage, cheap enough tube. Just need a lot of 7-pin sockets. Should have stocked up on them when they were cheaper.

How about using a 6AK5 instead of a output tube? A small signal pentode in each triode position?





Mind you, this was just an experiment to run on low voltage. Wonder what would happen upping it?

Small-signal pentodes will be much more suitable. The smaller the tube, the easier it is to distorted hence smaller tubes are somehow sound more distorted than their bigger cousins. Not sure if this is true though By using small-signal pentodes, this will be the closest representation of how will the larger pentodes (i.e EL34 and EL84) sound like if they are used as preamp tubes.

Is that yours?

Yes. I'll get back to it one day.