Hallo everybody,sorry if I write in english but my german is very bad!
so, I need to re tube my dc-5 but I didn't understood if I have to put specific power tubes due to the fixed bias!I want svetlana =C= could I take a normal pair of matched 6l6??the mesa are str-430 green.
for the pre section I thought of 2 mesa and 4 jj...what do you think?
thank you

Hi Ste!

I don´t think that there is any need to change all tubes at once. You could take every normal pair of matched 6l6 or 5881. I´ve never tried the winged C so I don´t know, if the sound quality increases according to the money in an acceptable way. (my english is not the best.. ;-)) Here are some good reports and comparisms - probably they are helpful to make the right choice:

http://www.tube-town.net/info/doc/tt-report-preamp-tubes-engl.pdf

http://www.tube-town.net/info/doc/tt-tubemap.pdf

They are both in english. Enjoy it. By the way: theres no need to buy Mesa tubes, they are not better than the halfpriced ones..

CU

Kai

thank you, so I can put whatever I want?great!
well, I know that I don't need to change everything, but I've just bought this used amp that is pre 1991 and I think that the pre tubes are the original and they sounds like crap!!
thak for the links

Hi!

If the power tubes are down  - everything may sound like crap. So the first step is to change the power tubes than listen an try to describe what you are missing, or what is to much and than choose your preamp tubes. This ways problem is that if the preamp tubes are down maybe everything is sounding like crap too - so decide. The last page on the second pdf is very interesting for you..

Try to describe your crap and your dream sound - here are some very skilled and experienced amp builder in this excellent forum - probably they are able to help you finding the sound you want.

Kai

thank you, I know that the best is to change the tubes step by step, but due the fact that the shops in my town don't have tubes I need to buy it on-line with 10€ for every shipping...so I prefer to do one order!!
the sound that I am serching is a rich and round clean for the first channel, a fenderish clean...and a roaring very dynamic and powerful lead channel.I play modern rock with some sort of prog sounds
in the tubemap they say jj for pre to have good clean/funky/crunch/hardrock sound and SED power for allaround...that's what I was thinking about...but in the mesa dedicated pae they suggest TT and sovtek/JJ...this scary me a lot...maybe that's too heavy...
maybe I could make v1-tt v2-tt v3-jj v4-jj v5-jj v6-jj and sovtek for power(that are cheaper than SED)
I so confused!

I don´t think thats a good idea to order only TTs an JJs for the preamp. My advice is: buy only 4 tubes: a JJ, a TT, an EI (with the Telefunken Anode), and a Tung Sol: V1: JJ, V2: TT or TS, V4 EI and you have the old tubes for changing too. Its impossible, that they are all death sounding. Changing the Preamp ECCs doesnt change the whole character of your amp. It´s still the Mesa DC-5.

Kai

thanks, well I don't want to change the mesa sound!I want to have a richer sound, now it sounds without attack, dynamic, volume, to have a good distortion I have to put the gain at 9....it's impossible to sound on 9 normally with mesa!and after almost 15 years of sounding I think that the tubes are gone!!!