Eddie Van Halen: The 5150III Era, Part 1

[Nigel]

Reinhold is using ECC803 Long plates in every preamp tube position of the Uber Ultra or select positions???

I would tend to think the long plates would not handle the gain the Uber Ultra's circuit and be susceptible to plate ring and oscillations versus a short plate 12ax7.

Long plates are just better tubes in every way and those 803’s are quiet.

 

[harddriver]

Long plates are just better tubes in every way and those 803’s are quiet.

Is he using a ECC803 in V1 position or everywhere in the Ultra?

 

[Nigel]

Is he using a ECC803 in V1 position or everywhere in the Ultra?

What I saw was everywhere.

I’ve been all long plates for like 15+ years.

Bob Gjika does as well.

 

[BenoA]

The Peavey part 3 is very interesting. All my respect to Jim and James for their hard work and their resilience for working with such a personality as EVH.

 

[VonBonfire]

I would tend to think the long plates would not handle the gain the Uber Ultra's circuit and be susceptible to plate ring and oscillations versus a short plate 12ax7.

I was using the ECC803s long plates (the gold pins) in my Twins with great sounding results and reliability even under extreme volume. Along came covid and I ordered more and they were all microphonic out of the box. Talk about disappointing. I haven't tried ordering more since then on account of that. Not sure if they got things straightened out. Sucks cause those were my favorite new preamp tube and I'm not interested in rolling the dice on another batch unless someone trustworthy has put recent ones in a combo and ripped it.

 

[The~Kid]

Long plates are just better tubes in every way and those 803’s are quiet.

What do you think about Sovtek LPS I know they aren't like the NOS stuff?

 

[Kordoba]

What do you think about Sovtek LPS I know they aren't like the NOS stuff?

IME a lot of them are microphic right out of the box. When they aren't, I would put them in the phase inverter and sometimes V1.

 

[SonVolt]

Alot of marketing BS with Edward(RIP)and Matt bruck,Edward was a modded Marshall guy also he loved the Soldano SLO(loved the SLO design-circuit)which they tried to copy and in my opinion fell way short. It’s all about the marketing and the money. In the late 70s Edward didn’t want Seymour Duncan to put out a special Van Halen pickup same with Grover Jackson putting out strip guitars because Edward said it wasn’t about the money now look it was all about the money with Edward and the gear he put out. Edward wanted Mike Soldano to make a special signature Eddie Van Halen Soldano SLO but Mike couldn’t mass produce SLO with the quality Mike puts into a SLO parts in general, Mike wouldn’t use lower quality parts in the SLO plus the price that a SLO sells for.

Thank God Edward and Randall did, b/c we got 2 legendary amps that are far more influential and iconic than the SLO.

 

[Lightning]

They copied(tried to)the SLO

 

[SonVolt]

They copied(tried to)the SLO

Some would say improved upon it.

 

[Lightning]

Improved?? I guess if that’s what some believe