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Post by headshrinker (Marc) on Apr 22, 2020 18:08:07 GMT -7
To get the quick version of this, skip to the last paragraph. Coffee and time on my hands, makes me write.
One of my favorite amps is the SRZ-65. I hadn’t played mine in a bit, so I got it out to have some fun with it and played it for a couple of days. A few days after, I was cleaning some things off of my workbench and came across a set of JJ 6CA7 tubes that I had used for a bit in my Therapy. After getting my Therapy many moons ago, I did a bit of tube swapping. The original 6L6s were good. Put in 6V6s and liked them. Then put in these 6CA7s and really liked them, more so than the original 6L6s. Played them at gigs for a couple of months and then decided to try some EL-34s in it and fell in love. They have been in ever since.
So I started thinking, what would 6CA7s sound like in the SRZ-65? If you are old enough to remember, the first Marshalls in the US had them in them. Had a bluesbreaker combo and a 50 watt head with them in it at the time. When we found out, it explained why our Marshalls didn’t sound like those British guy’s. Rumor has it that Van Halen had them in his Marshalls early on. Being retired and in quarantine, I have a lot of time on my hands, so I opened up the SRZ-65, put in the 6CA7s, rebiased it, grabbed the closest cab, a closed back 112 with a nicely broken in Vintage 30 in it and gave it a whirl with a PRS McCarty.
I immediately sounded just like Eddie. I was whipping off Van Halen licks that sounded just like the record. I was doing two handed tapping like a monster, when I could never do it before. No, none of that happened. I still sounded like crappy old me. But…the amp sounded glorious. It pushed the Marshall sounding amp in the Hiwatt direction. Not quite Pete Townsend Live At Leeds, but definitely in that camp. The guitar/amp sound was more piano like with a beautiful balance between lows, mids and highs. There was definitely more sparkle in the high end than the EL-34s. I had to drop the the highs and presence controls some. Less mids than them also. I had to up the mids a bit to get where I wanted to be. There were more lows and they were tighter than the 34s. All in all at the moment, I’m liking them more than the EL-34s I had in there, which were winged Cs by the way. The 6CA7s sound like the child of a 6L6 and an EL-34. You still have plenty of mids, but with a tighter more pronounced low end and more high end sparkle. Going to leave them in until I get a few gigs on them to see how it sounds at those volumes. Whenever that may be. My wife is very forgiving, and I was likely at that or slightly below from the master position, so I think they will be great. By the way, don’t fear the wattage of the SRZ-65, the master works great.
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Post by sharkboy on Apr 22, 2020 19:29:22 GMT -7
I remember snagging a pair of GT6CA7-GTs in the early 2000s for my THD Flexi. I had rolled about 8 different EL34 pairs and they just weren’t doing it for me. The 6CA7s were amazing. I’ve used them until I rolled in some of the KT77s and dropped one of them. I was heartbroken. GT had stopped making them. I talked to Myles and he offered to make me some (GT was switched over to making EL34Ms.) I regret telling him not to bother. I haven’t heard even a 6CA7 sound close to those babies.
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Post by wraparound (Steve) on Apr 22, 2020 21:15:52 GMT -7
Oh no, and I thought I was done tube rolling....here we go again! Thanks for the thread Marc, its nice to get some action over here.
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