Orange Amps Forum

Just swapped out my preamp tubes in my rockerverb 50 for the first time. The swap was prompted by the reverb tube failing. I used Sovtek 12AX7lps for V1, V2, V3, & V6/ I replaced V4, & V5 with 12AT7 by J/J. Reverb is beautiful, Both channels are very noise free and sound good, albeit a wee tight still (1hr of total use). I'm concerned because I saw no glow from V1, V2, V3 or V6. (even after 10 or so minutes of initial start up.) I could see V4 & V5 glow a soon as the amp was powered up. Is seem odd that all 4 Sovteks would have bad heaters. Do they have a magical heater that's hiding under that long plate? What is going on?

hairmph wrote:Just swapped out my preamp tubes in my rockerverb 50 for the first time. The swap was prompted by the reverb tube failing. I used Sovtek 12AX7lps for V1, V2, V3, & V6/ I replaced V4, & V5 with 12AT7 by J/J. Reverb is beautiful, Both channels are very noise free and sound good, albeit a wee tight still (1hr of total use). I'm concerned because I saw no glow from V1, V2, V3 or V6. (even after 10 or so minutes of initial start up.) I could see V4 & V5 glow a soon as the amp was powered up. Is seem odd that all 4 Sovteks would have bad heaters. Do they have a magical heater that's hiding under that long plate? What is going on?

Nothing unusual.

Not all heaters are equally visible. Doesn't matter though if they are working. Which yours clearly are or you'd be hearing nothing.


Andy.

Hey, Im new to tube amps. I also have a Rockerverb 50....... did you require re-biasing when you swapped your tubes?

You're okay on preamp tubes. No bias required. I do however recommend buying a balanced triode tested tube for your V6 (phase inverter). You will hear an increased balance in the volume level of high and low frequencies vs just plopping any tube in.

Learned from experience

As for the Sovtek 12ax7LPS. I love how quiet they are. They are very linear and break up later than the stock JJ's. My amp is much sweeter when LOUD. The power tubes get a chance to shine I think.
I did enjoy the stock JJecc83's. They were a bit more wild (pro and con). They were just a little too noisy for my preference. 60 cycle hum was cut in 1/2 with the Sovteks.

I seem to have a low-glow in one of my power-tubes. I have a RV 50 as well. From what I have read it's not a problem. Of course it still makes me uneasy. Any ideas?

Tamayo wrote:I seem to have a low-glow in one of my power-tubes. I have a RV 50 as well. From what I have read it's not a problem. Of course it still makes me uneasy. Any ideas?

relax

Hi, I recently purchased a Rockerverb 50 MK2, however I have a problem that is does not take overdrive/distortion/boost pedals well in through either channel. (goes flabbly)

The outputs valves were replaced by the shop I purchased the amp from however after spending more time with the amp I am not sure that there isn't an issue with the preamp valves?

Please note I am asking the question here because I want to learn something about my amp and not just have the shop fix it (also the shop is long way away as I bought it when I was working away a few weeks ago).

I am gonna have a trawl through some old threads and see if I can find an answer to my own questions once I have worked out what all the slang and acronyms mean.

Many thanks

Jonathan

a.hun wrote:

hairmph wrote:Just swapped out my preamp tubes in my rockerverb 50 for the first time. The swap was prompted by the reverb tube failing. I used Sovtek 12AX7lps for V1, V2, V3, & V6/ I replaced V4, & V5 with 12AT7 by J/J. Reverb is beautiful, Both channels are very noise free and sound good, albeit a wee tight still (1hr of total use). I'm concerned because I saw no glow from V1, V2, V3 or V6. (even after 10 or so minutes of initial start up.) I could see V4 & V5 glow a soon as the amp was powered up. Is seem odd that all 4 Sovteks would have bad heaters. Do they have a magical heater that's hiding under that long plate? What is going on?

Nothing unusual.

Not all heaters are equally visible. Doesn't matter though if they are working. Which yours clearly are or you'd be hearing nothing.


Andy.

Perfect. I was going to say exactly the same thing.

Hi Andy!

Jonny69 wrote:Hi, I recently purchased a Rockerverb 50 MK2, however I have a problem that is does not take overdrive/distortion/boost pedals well in through either channel. (goes flabbly)

The outputs valves were replaced by the shop I purchased the amp from however after spending more time with the amp I am not sure that there isn't an issue with the preamp valves?

Please note I am asking the question here because I want to learn something about my amp and not just have the shop fix it (also the shop is long way away as I bought it when I was working away a few weeks ago).

I am gonna have a trawl through some old threads and see if I can find an answer to my own questions once I have worked out what all the slang and acronyms mean.

Many thanks

Jonathan

Welcome to the world of Orange.

Yes, you will find that a lot of pedals don't work well with your Orange. You have to try a lot of pedals to find ones that work well with an Orange...

Search the threads for recommendations of pedals...

A little talk on pedals through the RV series.

http://forum.orangeamps.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=41610" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hi,

Thanks for the replys.

Rather annoyingly you are right. (just played for the last hour or so trying things out from the thread suggested)

The shame of it is that my handwired AC15 reacts really well with all of my pedals, it also loves it if you stack gain and boost pedals up in front of it.

The key I think is the Catalinbread super chlili or similar clean boost. That works well, but you do have to crank the pedal to make much difference, another annoyance is that it has a much larger effect on the clean channel than the dirty channel, volume wise that is.

I have tried the super chili in the effects loop and although the boost is then linear across both channels it seems to take something away, though I am not sure what I just dont like it.

Any other suggestions greatly welcomed?

Thanks

Jonathan

P.S I am now running my Rothwell switchblade on low gain in the clean channel, the dirty channel with a bit more grit than that, then using the boost to push the dirty channel. So I have 4(ish) channels

Clean
not so clean
heavy
very heavy

I quite like this setup but is there a better way or different pedals better suited to this amp?

Cheers

Hi Jonathan,

I like my original '81 TS9 on the dirty channel of the RV50MKII to push it over the edge, with a DaMOAF for the smushy stuff. For boosting, I run a Carl Martin Hydra in the effects loop and it's almost utterly transparent.

Alan

Hey Guys im new here.
I´ve bought my Rockerverb 50 Head like 2 years ago
and today I powerd my head on, and the overdriven
sound was tottaly muddy ... I first thought it was
because of a new muff pedal but then I plugged the guitar
straight into the amp and still it was muddy ...
And then I checked the tubes. The 4 big ones (sry im a noob)
glow like hell ... but the preamp tubes (those small 6)
the only 2 in the middle glow ok.
Could that be a problem?
PLS HELP ....
ORANGE FOR LIFE!

shardy wrote:Hey Guys im new here.
I´ve bought my Rockerverb 50 Head like 2 years ago
and today I powerd my head on, and the overdriven
sound was tottaly muddy ... I first thought it was
because of a new muff pedal but then I plugged the guitar
straight into the amp and still it was muddy ...
And then I checked the tubes. The 4 big ones (sry im a noob)
glow like hell ... but the preamp tubes (those small 6)
the only 2 in the middle glow ok.
Could that be a problem?
PLS HELP ....
ORANGE FOR LIFE!

If you haven't retubed the amp yet, it's time. You'll need to bring it to a tech to have the amp biased for the power tubes.

It can be hard to determine the glow of a tube unless you're in a pitch-black room. They don't have to appear the same brightness to be working properly...

The four big ones are the power amp tubes- and need to be biased. The preamp tubes can be replaced by you, but again- if you've been playing the amp for 2 years, I would suspect that it's time for fresh tubes... better to replace them proactively than to have them fail on a gig or worse, take something else out when they fail...

shardy wrote:Hey Guys im new here.
I´ve bought my Rockerverb 50 Head like 2 years ago
and today I powerd my head on, and the overdriven
sound was tottaly muddy ... I first thought it was
because of a new muff pedal but then I plugged the guitar
straight into the amp and still it was muddy ...
And then I checked the tubes. The 4 big ones (sry im a noob)
glow like hell ... but the preamp tubes (those small 6)
the only 2 in the middle glow ok.
Could that be a problem?
PLS HELP ....
ORANGE FOR LIFE!

I'm going to have to disagree with Billy on this. Doesn't sound like a case of having to replace all the valves to me. (Hardly ever needed anyway - preamp valves normally last a lot longer than power valves. Replacing them all with each power valve set is a waste of good valves!) As it is something which happened suddenly I think one failure could explain that, probably a valve though right enough.

Does the amp sound muddy on both channels or only one? If only one than it is likely to be a single preamp valve in that one channel which has gone south. If both channels sound bad then it is likely to be a shared valve meaning either the phase inverter valve (most likely cause) or possibly a power valve problem. I'd check the PI valve first though by swapping out with another 12AX7.

See the labelled pic HERE for which valves do what.

See my post above for why you can tell very little about whether a valve is working right just from the heater glows.

Of course it doesn't have to be a valve problem but that is the most likely problem and definitely the place to start.


Andy.