Someone mentioned to me it might be a voltage issue, in regards to why the power tubes aren't glowing that bright, and as this tech mentioned he couldn't get the power amplifier to meet its specs until he corrected the filament voltage issue. Apparently, the PC board runs are so thin that the drop across the paths adds up to 0.6 volts by the time it gets to the PC board with the 6L6's.
The 5152 is not a thin sounding amp IMO...However it does not have a lot of low end which I don't think is a bad thing...Different power tubes will make a difference though..I've found that the Ruby 6L6 are the best for this amp because it gives the amp a bigger low end....I tried a bunch of tubes in there and that was the best match...I like JJs in the preamp along with the Ruby's the power section.
So I let the amp warm up & figured before I started swapping tubes etc to check the power tubes. It's still hooked up to the mesa half back cab, head was already set to 8 ohms. So I turned off all the lights and flipped the Standby switch off to play mode and all of the sudden there was this bright blue glow at the base of all four of the Electro Harmonix 6L6's? Now I didn't plug a guitar in or anything so I flipped it back on standby for a couple minutes and flipped it off standby and it was doing it again and both times when I flipped it off standby there was this loud humming noise coming thru speakers and when switching from rhythm to lead channel with footswitch it made a loud popping noise? The post controls were at zero and when I did this
Looking at back of Peavey from power tubes left to right all four have blue glow at bottom of tubes and far right one is barely glowing at all. Preamp tubes left to right, far left preamp tube not glowing at all the three next to that one seem to be glowing fine and the last two closest to right are glowing really bright and making noises when tapping in them with pencil eraser