Tube amp question (Fender Twin content)

[Hep To The Jive]

LOL, ummmm, you're screwed, Looks like a 65 reissue. I'm not sure that even qualifies as a real Twin with those printed circuit boards. Even a real 65 would be clean with those pickups till it was cranked. You could get hotter p 90s but you should just give up and go the pedal route if volume is the issue. Those Radials cover a lot of bases check out the demos. Last secret, I run clean high quality amps so my rack set up sounds great. A master volume Twin or anything from a red knob on, as long as it isn't a reissue, can get a serviceable sound. See, I agree with you about your situation, trust those ears. For more grit I tend toward my old Ampegs.

Yeah, that's what I thought, I guess pedal is fine. I love master volume amps, this Twin would be so good with the one, can't see why would anyone have a problem, those purists, man, they like a plague, haha.

My Guild is an earlier one, when they were built pretty light, so high output pickup is out of question. Plus it works so good with my fav octal tube amps!

[Thumpalumpacus]

Hmm, like how much time are we talking about?

I usually rotated about 25 hours per pair. I'm not sure it matters much so long as each pair sees about the same time under load.

As noted above, on an amp noted for its headroom, you're not going to subtract much volume. IIRC, halving the output wattage only gives -3dB reduction in volume, so going from 100w to 50w, you're still going to be able to get some ears bleeding if you go too far past noon on the volume. 2 6L6s are still bloody loud. I think perhaps a better way to tame the air is to use this trick in conjunction with using a less-efficient speaker, assuming you can find one that still delivers the goods you want to hear.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Putting a 12ax7 in the phase inverter (v6) instead of the 12at7 warms it up as well. An old trick is to pull the 12ax7 from v1 and put that in v6. As v1 and v2 share an 820ohm grid resistor, that resistor becomes now the grid resistor solely for v2 only and gives it more gain (higher bias).

So with only two power tubes and v1 in v6 it becomes a different amp already.

I did exactly this with my old Bassman. It helped.

[GNAPPI]

There are a LOT of inexpensive little tube amps (cheap enough to have two or more) from Peavey, Marshall, and others that will wail like a little Marshall stack at club volumes. Their main problem with them is shitty mechanical design (OK "value engineered") where a heavy tube and socket are soldered directly onto to the PCB and a jolt from a traffic light and amp slide / crash, or minor oops drop, or even wiggling tubes from a socket can and do break the copper land(s) from the board.

Before gigging with a "modern" PCB based tube amp, I would remove ALL of the resist etch from the PCB and lay down copper braid on the lands and solder it down, then glue the filter caps together (if not already done with hi temp hot melt glue) and reinforce the mountings of the transformers. I have NEVER EVER seen repairs / mods like this fail even if the PCB (AND CASE) cracked totally.

The idiotically simple design in my gif below illustrates how an amp maker can increase reliability exponentially. The problem is the dies for the chassis punching, riveting the sockets, and pre-wiring the sockets with resistor color coded wires would take some assembly time.

[Cavalier]

Yeah, that's what I thought, I guess pedal is fine. I love master volume amps, this Twin would be so good with the one, can't see why would anyone have a problem, those purists, man, they like a plague, haha.

My Guild is an earlier one, when they were built pretty light, so high output pickup is out of question. Plus it works so good with my fav octal tube amps!

A master volume is a pretty straight forward mod, nobody would mind altering a reissue, a tech wouldn't charge a fortune. Lots of internet stuff out there on options. Don't open it up if you don't know how to discharge capacitors, there are scary voltages even when unplugged.

Those Guilds are great but having something heavier with more teeth would open up some options once the amp or pedal is sorted.

[mambosun]

I did the trick to remove the two outward or inward tube (must be done per symetrical tube pair) for years without an issue, it won't harm your amp. By doing this you then decrease the power by half.
I finally asked my tech to install a toggle switch that exactly does that. For (pop rock) gigs and rehearsal I still stick to half power settings.

[sgosnell]

The OP seems to be talking about doing this with an amp furnished in a club. I have to say that if I owned a club (I don't and never will) and you came in and pulled tubes out of my amp, that would be the last time you ever worked in my club, and I would make sure every other club owner I knew heard about it. Do what you like with your own amp, but do not mess with mine.

[Hep To The Jive]

The OP seems to be talking about doing this with an amp furnished in a club. I have to say that if I owned a club (I don't and never will) and you came in and pulled tubes out of my amp, that would be the last time you ever worked in my club, and I would make sure every other club owner I knew heard about it. Do what you like with your own amp, but do not mess with mine.

Ha, it was suggested by the sound guy who permanently works there, otherwise I wouldn't even know. I'm sure the club owner doesn't care as long as the amp works fine... I kinda glad you will never own a club

[sgosnell]

Well, if my sound guy messes with my amps, that's between him and me. I was envisioning someone doing that themselves, without asking me. Very different situations.

[Michiel]

You can indeed pull two of the four output tubes on a twin or a showman (always outer pair or inner pair, never 'left' pair or 'right' pair).

Note that the output impedance of the OT doubles from 4 to 8 ohm. The amp will loose a bit of low-end punch in the mismatch.
You can counter that by unhooking one of the internal speakers (just inclip one of the lugs), or hooking up an external 8-ohm cab.