To much bottom end!

Tracker

Get the "Balanced" ECC83S for your Phase Inverter (or Splitter). That is the tube on the left looking from the back next to the larger Power tubes.

As for the other two, you could get the "Standard" or "High Gain". Looks like the High Gain will cost $5 extra. Bob says these High Gain tubes will give your amp more edge. You like the Drive channels a lot, hey, I'd go with the High Gain tubes. He wasn't advertising the High Gain tubes when I ordered. I am pretty sure I got the Standard tubes. But I love them.

The "Matched Triode" looks more like for Hi-Fi use.

You won't even have to take the back cover off the amp to replace these tubes. I just put some soft pillows down and laid the amp on it's face. With a little wiggle they came out (not too much wiggle, you'll bend the pins).
You can see up inside. The tubes only line up one way. It's easy, took less than 5 minutes.

Bob is quick, I got my tubes in 3 days.

Bob also has complete packages including the Power tubes. Did you see that? It's always good to have a spare set of Power Tubes. At the time I was pretty broke or I would have ordered them too.

Here's the page for the "Full Retube" packages for the HRD/Deville

Full Retube for HRD/Deville

Gives a little more info there. Gives you several options on Power Tubes as well.

Thanks Wes!!!

Hey, I really like the Blues option #2 - JJ 6V6's earlier break-up with a warmer blues tone. Sounds good I'll have to look into those more.

Thanks Again!

Tracker

Those JJ 6V6's are Power tubes. If you decide to replace the Power tubes you should bias the amp as well. Bob can tell you what the setting for those tubes are.

The 6L6GC is the standard Power tube for the HRD. You could get away without a bias there. It is the same tube as the Groove Tubes that come stock with HRD's although better quality. The 6L6GC will give you lots of clean volume before breakup.

Whatever you do, let me know how you like them.

I promise you will like how those ECC83S's tighten up your bass. Big difference. And it sounds better on Clean, Drive or More Drive. Your HRD will have 1st class tone.

I just got done ordering the 3 smaller tubes. I'll change the power tubes later if I feel like there is room for improvement.

I ordered the balanced and the 2 high gain. I can't wait!

I ordered them 5 minutes ago, that means I should have them in 71hrs55min. Is it me or is time moving VERY SLOWLY right now! :roll:

I knew wes would know about that amp more than anyone. I would purhaps think about getting the Full tube package being they've done their home work on what would sound a certain way.

Full Retube Kits For Fender

Joe

Joe,

If you look at the bottom of your link :wink: , you will see the blues option #2. I liked what I read so far.

Does the "full package" include all 5 tubes?

But for now, I'll wait and see what the difference is in my amps tone is when I change to the 3 ECC83S's.

Tracker

Those "Full Retube" packages include 3 preamp tubes (one balanced for the phase splitter) and 2 Power tubes.

I am glad to hear you ordered those ECC83S's. You should get them hopefully by Saturday.

Please write a detailed review of the tubes when you get them. :D

Here's a couple of Fender amps mods that work.

There are direct replacements for the 6L6 which require nothing more than a rebias after installation. They will give a little less headroom, break up a little sooner, and add a little more grind to the amp. Another option is to swap your 6L6's with EL34's. EL34's have a darker tone, the break up alot earlier than the 6L6. EL34's ARE NOT direct replacements for the 6L6. You'll need to make a slight modification to your amp, after the Mod you can run either El34's or 6L6's. Another thought would be to use an item called a Yellow jacket.Yellow Jackets Converters are a type of specialized adapters which permit the use of EL84/6BQ5 power tubes in place of 6V6, 6L6, EL34, and 7591 types.

Another mod is Simply remove the first preamp tube. Tubes in a dual channel amp share a common power supply. The more tubes you have, the more current is drawn, and the more the voltage drops in the power supply. Removing the one tubes drops the amount of current being drawn, the voltage rises in the power supply, and this in turn causes the remaining pre-amp tubes to run a little hotter. Which effectively increases the overall gain.

Joe

Another mod is Simply remove the first preamp tube. Tubes in a dual channel amp share a common power supply. The more tubes you have, the more current is drawn, and the more the voltage drops in the power supply. Removing the one tubes drops the amount of current being drawn, the voltage rises in the power supply, and this in turn causes the remaining pre-amp tubes to run a little hotter. Which effectively increases the overall gain.

Will that hurt the amp running hot like that all the time? If so, what would get suffer the most?

Tracker

Justin talks about this on the Unofficial Hot Rod Deluxe page. It may not work for the HRD. Here is what he says.


Pulling a Tube for Lower Volume
This has been asked so I'm including it here. It's possible to pull a power tube out of your HRD, but I'll save you some time and tell you that it will sound terrible and won't lower the volume. You can only pull power tubes when they're in multiple pairs. For instance, if you have two pairs of power tubes (a total of four), then you could pull a pair and only run the amp on two. There are some drawbacks to this like throwing the impedance off, but it can be done. Whether this is unhealthy for your amp or not is a matter of opinion between the experts. (I'm definitely not one of them. Sorry.) Pulling one power tube, out of a pair, will absolutely result in nasty crossover distortion. Try it if you want. Assuming nothing breaks I can guarantee that you won't like it.

Please remember that doing things like I suggest may or may not work for you. I haven't seen any real improvements at the output saturation stage doing either. This particular mod of pulling a preamp tube I haven't done in awhile or haven't done for extended periods of playing time. I found it easier to use an outboard equalizer in the signal chain and plug an attenuator between the amps outputs and the speaker to get the output saturation I'm look for.

Joe

The tubes came in today!!!

I'll have to wait untill after diner to install them :cry: . I can wait to hear if there is any difference.

Price-

2 - ECC83S High Gain = $20.00 ($10 each)
1 - ECC83S Balanced = $10.00

Total after shipping = $36.00

WooooooHoooo!

Alright Tracker!

You better stick those in there tonight and give us a little review. 8)

Wes

WooooooHoooo!

Wes

You can say that again!!!

To be honest with you, I didn't think there would be this much difference. The amp was great stock but for $36.00 it is a very nice up-grade!

O.k. a quick summary of the sound (quick only because my wife was yelling at me to turn it down!!! And it was only on 3!) The sound was a lot smoother and brightened up more. It was like the amp was singing to me. I was able to turn the bass up to around 4 WITHOUT pictures falling off the walls. The drive channels sounded AWESOME. I have the drive around 3 and am very impressed. If I turn the drive up it sounds "cleaner" than before (a good thing).

All in all, two thumbs up!!

I want to get the Blues option #2 but, I really don't want to get into having to bias the amp at this point. I will look into that after I get to REALLY hammer the new tubes.

Thank You very much Wes for recommending Bob's site to me.

Where is Corbind? I hope he gets a shot to read this.

You'll have to have all of us over to help you test out the new tubes..lol

Joe