I bought a used Marshall TSL100 head and I was expecting the lead channel to blow my ass away with gobs of gain. Plugged in and cranked the gain knob and while it was basically a high-ish gain sound it was really pretty weak and sounded like it was held back. After some thought, I changed V2 and V3 to some 12AX7/ECC83's I had laying around that were well used but still had life. The sound had a marginal improvement but still not that thick overabundance of gain I knew the amp was capable of. Then I put a brand new Tung Sol into V1. Easily doubled the amount of gain in the lead channel. I was much happier then.chachi wrote: ↑Tue Jul 02, 2019 3:05 pmMade the tube swap last night. There's definitely a difference. I can see how someone could like the 12AT7 in there, but I prefer the grit/gain as intended with ECC83. I would also probably prefer EL34L as well. Now I just need to figure out if I prefer this or the AD30HTC.
I suggest getting completely brand new fresh 12AX7's for V1 and V2. I don't have any particular brand affinity when it comes to tubes but that Tung Sol seriously impressed me. The lead channel explodes with gain but the clean channel still retains insane headroom all from a V1 switch. Go figure. Who knows how old the tubes are in your R30. Probably could greatly benefit from a full on retube power and pre but in terms of the gain increase, all fresh preamp tubes should probably restore the gain dial's full potential.