CS50 vs Rocker 30 plate volrage

[Jealbe49]

I am new here and Just got a rocker 30 that came with mercury trannies from May 09. Plate voltage is 315v and idle current is 65-77ma. The winged C’s that came in it are still very strong and sound great. It sounded good but the preamp tubes were all weak. I did some tube rolling and ended up with a very strong Baldwin labeled long plate in V1, GE 5751 V2, a strong Mullard MC1 V3 and both channels are just glorious now.
Does anyone know what the plate voltage current draw is on the CS50 in 30 watt cathode bias mode?

[Jondog]

I can’t answer that definitively for you, but the Retro 50 uses the same cathode resistance as the Rocker 30 in 30 watt mode. I would assume the Custom Shop has the same power section as the Retro. The Power transformers on all three are likely the same, although the Mercurys may be slightly different in voltage from the Demeters that Orange mainly use. The output transformers are different, the Rocker uses a smaller transformer with a 6.6k primary, the Custom shop will use one around 4k, so that will likely have some affect on current.

[Jealbe49]

Seems all 3 have similar DNA.
Played my first gig with it this weekend and had a blast. The natural had nice cleans and took all my pedals great. Dirty channel was best with no pedals except my old ts808 at times. Very versatile head as my trio covers everything from classic melodic rock, country to pop. Very tight low end for a cathode biased amp. It's a keeper for sure. Still has more volume than I need since we mic everything and use in ears. May try it as a 15 watt next.

I have a pair of VHT octal to 9 pin converters so tried a pair if el84's. Plate voltage rose to 348v and idle current 41ma so about right. Stock cathode resistors 330/270 in parallel are 150 so can go to EL84's with no changes.

Based on this post I found from Ade probably need to use 16ohm speaker in 8ohm jack.


The plate voltage is fine! However,if you want to try 6V6`s in a Rocker 30, you need to run them into an 8K load! The Rocker 30 has a 4K load which will become an 8K load if you use the 8 ohm jack to run a 16 ohm speaker! This amp also has 2 cathode bias resistors, one 270 ohm and one 330 ohm, wired in parallel. You need to remove one of these resistors when using 6V6`s in this amp! If you remove the 330 ohm, the amp will be running in really deep class A and on the hot side. If you remove the 270 ohm, the amp will run a little cooler and you nice little RCA`s will last longer! Also, two 6V6`s will only make around 15 to 20 watts in class A so you will have turned your Rocker 30 into a Rocker 15!
If thats what you want, then give it a try!

Ade Emsley
Orange Amps