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  • This should be interesting :popcorn:

    It's now claimed that tube bottle size affects your tone. I think I can say that I've heard it all now. You know how it is on youtube, your looking at videos about one thing, and then you see a video that may or may not be related to the one thing you searched for right? Well I came across this gem. You guys have a word for some people who think stuff like this makes a difference but I can't remember what it is.

    edit: I'm sure it would affect the tone if the tube is microphonic. I personally don't dig microphonic tubes


  • #2
    Of course comments are disabled for that video.
    "Stand back, I'm holding a calculator." - chinrest

    "I happen to have an original 1955 Stratocaster! The neck and body have been replaced with top quality Warmoth parts, I upgraded the hardware and put in custom, hand wound pickups. It's fabulous. There's nothing like that vintage tone or owning an original." - Chuck H

    Comment


    • #3
      (Cough BS Cough)
      Anyway, wouldn't the only way to REALLY test this be to stick EL84 guts in a KT88 "bottle" and see what happens? I'm neither willing nor inclined to really care.

      Who is that guy? Now we're gonna have everyone underbiasing their guitar amps for "better bass response." Also, I only see 3 knobs on the Normal channel of that Super Reverb. That makes it a 50W, right? And, no mention of circuits? I've made a 6L6 amp that was plenty bright and crisp without a lot of bass response...

      Justin
      Last edited by Justin Thomas; 03-04-2018, 06:19 PM.
      "Wow it's red! That doesn't look like the standard Marshall red. It's more like hooker lipstick/clown nose/poodle pecker red." - Chuck H. -
      "Of course that means playing **LOUD** , best but useless solution to modern sissy snowflake players." - J.M. Fahey -
      "All I ever managed to do with that amp was... kill small rodents within a 50 yard radius of my practice building." - Tone Meister -

      Comment


      • #4
        I draw the line at the composition of capacitors making a difference. This has gone too far

        Comment


        • #5
          That's Nate Westgor. Owner/operator of Willies American Guitars in St. Paul, MN. He likes to brag about famous guitarists that have visited his shop. I'd love to be there some time when he's talking his smack to one of them and politely insert myself into the matter.
          "Take two placebos, works twice as well." Enzo

          "Now get off my lawn with your silicooties and boom-chucka speakers and computers masquerading as amplifiers" Justin Thomas

          "If you're not interested in opinions and the experience of others, why even start a thread?
          You can't just expect consent." Helmholtz

          Comment


          • #6
            But he looks so knowledgeable sitting there next to all that gear!! Only watched the first 42 seconds without sound and saw him blowing into bottles. My thought was he believes that electrons are are like wind blowing into a bottle. I'll watch the whole thing later tonight after work. It will keep me in suspense all night long...
            When the going gets weird... The weird turn pro!

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            • #7
              I might buy that a big bottle 6CA7 sounds different from a narrow bottle EL34, but not because of the glass size, they are just different brands of tube. Just as I might expect a JJ EL34 to sound different from a Sovtek.
              Education is what you're left with after you have forgotten what you have learned.

              Comment


              • #8
                I wonder if he burned his lips in the early stages of developing this theory?
                "Take two placebos, works twice as well." Enzo

                "Now get off my lawn with your silicooties and boom-chucka speakers and computers masquerading as amplifiers" Justin Thomas

                "If you're not interested in opinions and the experience of others, why even start a thread?
                You can't just expect consent." Helmholtz

                Comment


                • #9
                  Does he not know that amplifier tubes will go down to DC? Or a coke-bottle 6L6 sounds the same as the small-envelope 6L6? Talk about having a flat-earth perspective on things. Maybe a larger tube has 'more' vacuum.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    In the first place, the reality is that it takes "more power" to create lower, more-solid bass. Larger tubes are designed to put out more power, thus larger tubes are capable of creating better, tighter bass, given that the circuitry is designed for more bass response.

                    In the second place, higher-wattage amps may have speakers that are capable of handling more power, and more bass. A 15-watt combo amp with one Celestion Greenback, and using EL84 or 6V6 tubes is much less likely to be able to respond and push lower notes as well as a Marshall amp with EL34s or 6550s, with 4 of the same speakers, the Celestion Greenbacks. EL34s are a bit smaller size than 6550, and the 6550s CAN sound a bit more "clean and bassy", but I'm sure that's due more to the tube characteristics and circuitry electronic differences than "bottle size".

                    There are SO many other factors involved than just "bottle size". For his theory to be tested, he'd have to have the EXACT SAME tube innards, placed inside different size bottles, and compared and measured in the same exact amp, wouldn't he? That ain't gonna happen!

                    I wonder if he just thinks it's maybe a variation in the time the electrons scatter, bounce around and get collected to push through the rest of the circuit, and he believes a larger bottle "takes a bit more time, and can produce more bass"? Or, something like that?

                    I've had people ask me, "Why does everyone say tube amps sound better than solid state amps". I tell them they are just "smoother", and then if they ask more, try to explain "even-order harmonics". If they still question, I resort to "MY theory", which IS only a theory, but I can imagine it.

                    I tell them that when a signal hits a tube, the electrons get heated and scattered from an element, outward inside the vacuum of the tube, maybe bouncing off the glass, maybe out-some then over. Then, they are collected fairly randomly by another element and sent through to the next components. It happens very quickly, but it does introduce a little bit of a distortion of the signal, which sort of "smooths" the SOUND of the signal. Each tube the signal passes through does some of that. A transistor, on the other hand, sends the electrons straight through a very narrow pathway, basically in the same order from input to output, and probably a bit faster and more immediate. It could be a MUCH "cleaner" signal, much closer to the original, but it loses that "smoothness" that tubes impart. That's only MY theory, as I have never really seen anyone explain in these simplified terms, but it's how I imagine it.

                    I, myself, may be completely wrong in my oversimplification. And, maybe the guy in the video had SOMEWHAT of the same idea, and thinks a "larger bottle" has some signal/time/output-tone relationship? I dunno. But, what he offered can't even be tested, because of all the other variables involved...which is pretty much "every other part of the amp".

                    Anyway...just my thoughts on that. Have fun...lol!

                    Brad1
                    Last edited by Brad1; 03-05-2018, 11:33 AM.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Mick Bailey View Post
                      'more' vacuum.


                      That's better than "jumbo shrimp" or even "military intelligence"

                      Bugs Bunny would say: "What a oxymaroon. What a ultra oxymaroon."

                      Last edited by Chuck H; 03-05-2018, 01:38 PM.
                      "Take two placebos, works twice as well." Enzo

                      "Now get off my lawn with your silicooties and boom-chucka speakers and computers masquerading as amplifiers" Justin Thomas

                      "If you're not interested in opinions and the experience of others, why even start a thread?
                      You can't just expect consent." Helmholtz

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Brad1 View Post
                        I tell them that when a signal hits a tube, the electrons get heated and scattered from an element, outward inside the vacuum of the tube, maybe bouncing off the glass, maybe out-some then over. Then, they are collected fairly randomly by another element and sent through to the next components. It happens very quickly, but it does introduce a little bit of a distortion of the signal, which sort of "smooths" the SOUND of the signal. Each tube the signal passes through does some of that.
                        Oh that's terrific!

                        Any electrons bouncing off the glass have gotten way lost from the area where all the action is. No matter, that puts them squarely in my organization, the Lost Electricity Reclamation Agency. You can find us near the Veterans Tap Dance Administration, right next to the Department of Spies.
                        This isn't the future I signed up for.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          You should also definitely mention crystal lattice

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            The way I see it, what's happening in a tube is an electronic interaction and not a physical or acoustic interaction. In fact, even in the case of tube microphony affecting the sound I would expect the opposite of what Nate says to be true. That is, any anomalous vibration in the bigger bottle will be of a lower frequency than the smaller bottle (you can tell this by blowing into different size bottles ). Any sound made by a tube that is NOT signal only stands to threaten the signal. Phase errors, sum/difference harmonics, etc. Therefor a tube that reacts less physically at lower frequencies will have better low end

                            I totally just made all that $h!t up, but it sounds WAAAYY better than Nate's perpective.
                            "Take two placebos, works twice as well." Enzo

                            "Now get off my lawn with your silicooties and boom-chucka speakers and computers masquerading as amplifiers" Justin Thomas

                            "If you're not interested in opinions and the experience of others, why even start a thread?
                            You can't just expect consent." Helmholtz

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by frus View Post
                              You should also definitely mention crystal lattice
                              I wince every time I see that video. I bet he would too, but he get's distracted wanting a bacon lattice and tomato sandwich.
                              "Take two placebos, works twice as well." Enzo

                              "Now get off my lawn with your silicooties and boom-chucka speakers and computers masquerading as amplifiers" Justin Thomas

                              "If you're not interested in opinions and the experience of others, why even start a thread?
                              You can't just expect consent." Helmholtz

                              Comment

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