[ninja636]

Just got my matched Tung-Sol 12AX7's!!! My dad's meeting me and the wife at the hospital in ATL tomorrow. He wants to see whats up with my eye's. Anyway's, he's letting me have one of his old bias meters, and an osciliscope(sp). Don't know what I'll use the latter for, but I'll take it. Now I'll be able to bias my amp on my own instead of paying someone to do it for me. I'm pretty sure there both old Army issue equipment, since he was in the Signal Corp. like forever, and still works for the guv'ment fixing their shit. I got like 2-3 old army multimeters he gave me, olive drab and in shrapnel-proof cases. I'll keep you guy's posted on any tone changes for the V100H. Peace out.

[MrSandMan]

I'm sure these tubes increased the tone for you. Tubes make a significant difference in tone.

I learned that with a PV XXX. A stock XXX sounds sterile and fizzy. Swap out the valves and you got yourself a tone-monster.

I'm willing to wager that the Crate is the same.

[ninja636]

Well, I got the scope and bias meter from my dad, but I think I'm going to wait till Thanksgiving when I go see him and my mom and he can show me how it's done. I don't wanna blow anything up, especially me! Besides, he told me he'd show me how to hook the scope up to my amp so I can SEE the difference in the new tubes and old tubes...pretty cool huh?

[MrSandMan]

If you just changed the preamps, you don't need to bias. bias is only for the power tubes.

The preamps upgrade will make a huge difference. If you want more gain, check into the JJ 12AX7 at eurotubes. He sells some hot 12AX7s.

How does it sound through your cab?

[ninja636]

The cab (Crate) is questionable. It sounds really "boomy" is the only way I can describe it. I even hooked my ss XT120R up to it hoping it was maybe just the tubes in the amp, but my XT was "boomy" as well through it. Maybe if it had some G12's it might sound better. I've even rolled back on the lows on both the amp and my 7 band eq. It's especially bassy in clean mode. Might be my axe contributing to it too though. Someones coming over tonight with an Ibanez RG and Epi Les Paul, I'm going to see how it sounds with these guitars. I've had it long enough that the newness has worn off, and I'm really starting to "listen" to it. I still like it though, best 550 bucks I've spent in a while. I'm going to go a head and replace the preamp tubes and see how she sounds then. Tonight it gets the real world acid test, jammin' with another guitarist, and it's going up against a Mesa Dual Rec. Let you guy's know how we fared tomorrow.

[MrSandMan]

Is that active eq? Wonder how it sounds with the mids on 6 and treble on 4..and cut the bass. Wonder if tightens up.