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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on May 14, 2018 16:59:45 GMT -7
Say fellas, I've got a new to me Z-Wreck coming in tomorrow, and I know that the currently supplied Russian tubes are rated at 5,000 hours. That's the equivalent of 2 1/2 years of 40 hours a week of usage...quite a bit of time unless you're a studio cat, and your amp's cooking all day. Have any of you had to replace your output tubes yet, and how long do you think they worked sounding great before starting to go downhill?
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Post by Rockerfeller on May 14, 2018 18:05:24 GMT -7
I bought my Wreck head used from Mike. I believe he was the second owner and they were the original tubes. I put in a brand new set of power tubes just so I would know how old the tubes were. It turned out that the old ones were fine, and I could not tell the difference between the old and new tubes. YMMV. Those tubes are pretty robust!
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Post by brightlight on May 14, 2018 18:46:04 GMT -7
When I still had my wreck combo before I traded it towards an EMS I swapped the power tubes after about 1 year of heavy use with the volume about 3/4 up and brake lite on 2 clicks. I'll give you this as a rough estimate of when to change power tubes: when you feel like speed mode doesn't sound that different from comfort then there's an issue. Speed mode vs comfort to me is almost like old vs new strings and if speed isn't giving your tone that percussive kick in the arse anymore like it should then it's time to change power tubes.
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on May 15, 2018 19:33:44 GMT -7
So...I don't know how old the tubes are that came in the amp, but I suspect they're original. The amp is a 2013, so 5 year old tubes and it sounded GREAT. I had just ordered a couple of quads of tubes from PerryR, and so for fun I checked the new tubes (to get a baseline) on my Hickok 536. They were nicely matched, and drew 47mA at 15000 on the meter. The old tubes checked almost identically. I went ahead and replaced the output tubes with the fresh set and put the originals aside for future use, and also put a nice old Mullard 5AR4 rectifier in the amp. Buttoned it up, and it sounds just terrific. What a great job Doc did on this amp, and if you're on the fence about buying one, don't wait 5 or 6 years like I did, just do it. It's the best amp I've ever played, no kidding. Gigged it tonight, and got compliments from all over about the tone. Just incredible.
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