Running an MTS head at 50 watts?

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trendkill1168

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Anyone ever try and run one of these heads at 50 watts? By this I mean pull the 2 outside tubes and just use the 2 in the middle. I was just thinking that it might be cool to try this and see if you can push the tubes harder at lower volume levels at the lower wattage.
 
Not sure it would help. I'm using a HotPlate with my 50 watt head. Definately sounds better with the HP at 8% and the master about 1 oclock.
 
I'm sure your right......even at 50 watts I bet it would still be way too loud to open up those power tubes. Guess I'm gonna have to run an overdrive up front.
 
Before getting the HotPlate I thought abouy THD Yellow Jackets to put EL84's in the amp.

Check out the new 20 watt head - to bad you can't load 2 modules, 3 module head with 20 watts would pretty sweet too.
 
ned said:
to bad you can't load 2 modules, 3 module head with 20 watts would pretty sweet too.
Click to expand...

I have an RM100, and I've just got a quad of Yellow Jackets to try out. THD Electronics just came out with Yellow Jacket Triodes, which are basically half-power YJs. I think that will knock the 100W amp down to about 20W. I'll let you know how it sounds. :)

BTW--options of course are to get an RM4 and a 20W power amp, or to load the amp with 6V6s, etc. :)

Orren
 
Orren said:
ned said:
to bad you can't load 2 modules, 3 module head with 20 watts would pretty sweet too.
Click to expand...

I have an RM100, and I've just got a quad of Yellow Jackets to try out. THD Electronics just came out with Yellow Jacket Triodes, which are basically half-power YJs. I think that will knock the 100W amp down to about 20W. I'll let you know how it sounds. :)

BTW--options of course are to get an RM4 and a 20W power amp, or to load the amp with 6V6s, etc. :)

Orren
Click to expand...

Cool man! Let us know. Might have to pick me up a set of these.
 
Another option is to load the amp with 6V6's bias between .18 and .25, this way you don't need the YellowJackets.

There was a thread at www.thegearpage.net talking this.
 
Follow up Q...

Is it a "must" to run the head on the middle tubes or can I run it on tube 1 & 4??

It's separated bias controlls in the amp.. so I thought maybe?
 
Bruce E. replied to the thread mentioned by Ned, and I'll just include his text in here verbatim:

"FYI: The only 6V6 that we know of that is safe at the plate voltage in the Egnater amps is made by JJ. We've tested them and they held up just fine in the MOD50. Haven't tried them in the MOD100 but the voltage is the same. Should make the MOD100 around 40 watts.
The MOD50 has a low/high power switch (actually the standby switch does both functions). With 6L6/5881/EL34/KT66 you get around 60 watts in high power and 20 watts in low. With a pair of JJ 6V6, power out was 18 watts in high and 4 watts in low power."
 
Hello all,

Noob here. Looking at possibly getting an MTS100M2, but would really like to know the answer to the original question first.

If there was a 50-watt, 3-module option, that's what I'd probably really go for. Going from four to two tubes / 50 watts helps somewhat with keeping things from getting unreasonably loud, but also means half the cost in retubing for power tubes. I don't find the 6V6 option too appealing, because it doesn't look like it gets much lower than 50 watts anyway, plus you can't easily switch back up to full 100 watt power without rebiasing. I'd probably run my hotplate much of the time even with 50 watts.

Orren- how do your Yellowjackets sound? I've heard they can change tone significantly, though not necessarily in a bad way.

So does anyone know, can this amp run safely with 2 power tubes removed? Which ones should be removed if so?

Will pulling two tubes affect the speaker output impedance? (My Ampeg VT-120 from 1990 has a half power switch which cuts out two of the 4 power tubes, but warns that the speaker output impedance doubles- i.e. I need to plug my 8 ohm speaker into the 4 ohm jack when running half power.)

Thanks for any replies, sorry for the long-winded 1st post...
 
Stratoblaster said:
Orren- how do your Yellowjackets sound? I've heard they can change tone significantly, though not necessarily in a bad way.
Click to expand...

Hi Stratoblaster,

I am a huge fan of the Yellowjackets! You're right, it does change the tone, but how much it changes the tone depends a lot on the amp. In a non-master volume amp in which much of the distortion is from the power tubes, changing to EL84s will make a very large difference. In a master volume amp, in the tone is mostly from the preamp, and the power amp mostly warms up and opens up the sound, the change will be minimal.

With the RM100, the power amp section is designed to be pretty neutral, so that the tone of the preamps shine through. As such, I didn't feel that using the Yellowjackets actually changed the sound too much. I think there might have been a bit less bass, maybe a bit more edge, but it wasn't something that you couldn't tweak the EQ to change if you didn't like.

Hope that helps,
Orren
 
So does anyone know said:
Exactly what I need to know as well. I can imagine that 2 EL34 or 6L6 would require a rebias of the amp. The 6V6 option does not appeal to me either. I've used that tube in many a Tweed Deluxe and its a different animal altogether. Nice mids to be sure, but the bass can be mushy and the highs can lack detail compared to an EL34 or 6L6. And I'm talking NOS 6V6's like RCA, Sylvania, GE, etc. Having said that, I'm interested in trying a quad of 6V6 in the RM-100 just for grins. I've heard the JJ mentioned but supposedly the EH 6V6 can stand up to high plate voltages as well.
Click to expand...
 
For a push/pull type poweramp (like the class AB poweramp of the RM100) the tubes are in parallel. I'm pretty sure you can pull either the inner tubes or the outer tubes. I think the main thing is to make sure you dont have 2 tubes on one side and then no tubes on the other side.

It shouldnt change the impedance of your amp.. that has to do with which windings of your output transformer are connected to your speaker jacks. However, as mentioned earlier (the ampeg amp I think it was), that might not be the case. Honestly, I'd call randall and ask them if you weren't sure. But I dont think its a problem..

Disclaimer: I could be wrong :)

cody
 
I think I read in another topic on this forum that Randall is pretty bad at responding to email. However people have had generally better luck by calling Randall customer service
 

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