Peavey Triple XXX - EL34 or 6L6? Preamp tubes?

[napalmdeath]

Got one recently, and has JJ EL34's in it, and EH 12AX7's, with a Sovtek LPS in the PI.
I just got a Tungsol, and a couple Mullard RI's for experimenting, and am going to order a couple JJ ECC83S's as well.

The amp sounds kinda grainy, and harsh. I've owned one before, and ran through the same cabinet I now have - a G-Flex 2x12 - a very warm, thumpy cab.

Just curious as to power amp tubes - maybe I'm looking for 6L6's, to add some thump, and sound overall bigger.

Looking for suggestions/advice.

 

[D-Rock]

Any new production 6L6 will do. Look at Ruby, Tungsol, JJ, etc.

JJ ECC83S work particularly well in these amps. In the V1 and V2 positions, they help to smooth out the grainy, harsh gain.
Remember, the crunch and ultra channels have active eq sections, so don't go overboard with your settings.

Edit: Didn't you already get a boatload of suggestions over at HC?

 

[napalmdeath]

Edit: Didn't you already get a boatload of suggestions over at HC?

Yes, and no.

 

[tweed]

6L6's for this amp. Try replacing V1 with a low gain tube it will really help. Like the post above, take it easy on the eq section, a very minor turn of the knob(s) makes quite a change.

 

[killertone]

I changed out the screen grid resistors to 1K ohm 5W so that the amp was more reliable when using EL34s along with using a NOS JAN Philips 12AX7A in V1. Sounded incredible. I did this to two XXX heads and they both came out killer. The early XXXs had problems running EL34s, especially JJ E34Ls, because of shitty screen grid resistors. They addressed it later on but I didn't keep track if it worked out or not.