Peavey Mace VT Trouble :(

[themeedlyone]

a friend of mine just gave me a mace vt head. it had 5 sovtek 6l6 tubes in it so i put a ruby in the empty socket and it fired right up and sounded great. i did some reading after i got it home and discovered that i could run it with 4 or 2 tubes which i liked better than mixing brands. any-who to the issue, no matter how many tubes i run in it (6 ,4 ,or 2) one of them ends up getting hotter than the others, its not the same tube or socket. ive tried 2 different sets of tubes.

[soundguruman]

You have to remove the circuit board, drill the rivets out.
You have to fix the circuit traces, or the burns on the board, etc...
Sounds like your bias is failing...

[Enzo]

What do you mean hotter? DO you mean the plate structure inside gets red hot? We call that "red-plating." or do you mean holding your finger next to them, one feels hotter? Or what?

If it is not one socket, and it is not one tube, do you mean that tube A will get hot in socket 1 today but tomorrow tube C will get hot in socket 5? If each socket can run a tube more or less nromally, that tends to mean the amp is OK. If the tubes are on again off again, then you seem to have iffy tubes.

And really, much as we love matched sets, the amp doesn;t care at all if you mix brands.

[RHarris]

Peavey Mace Problems

a friend of mine just gave me a mace vt head. it had 5 sovtek 6l6 tubes in it so i put a ruby in the empty socket and it fired right up and sounded great. i did some reading after i got it home and discovered that i could run it with 4 or 2 tubes which i liked better than mixing brands. any-who to the issue, no matter how many tubes i run in it (6 ,4 ,or 2) one of them ends up getting hotter than the others, its not the same tube or socket. ive tried 2 different sets of tubes.

I have owned Peavey Maces since theye first came out in the mid 70's. I currently own 1 of each model Mace ever produced (1-Pre-VT Series Head, 1 each of the VT Series 212 with Black Widows & with the 212 Very heavily built Eminence Speakers). The Mace is the forerunner of the Peavey 6505's designed in coordination with Gary Rossingtons assistance as the replacement Amp for the Mace (as Maces were his favorite Amp).

All Mace Amps have one fatal flaw & that is the heat produced by the 6L6's are too much for the PC Board that they mount to. I have had to repair 6 of them & each time it was the heat dissipation issue. I solved the issue by installing a 6505 Vent Grill just above the PC Board & provided air circulation by installing fans to counteract the overheating problem of each Amp. Also the previous poster was right but with 160WRMS pumping near full tilt it is better to have all 6 tubes match & that the bias is correct.

Once this is done all that they require is normal regular preventive maintenance. I hope this helps.