Guitar Tubes and parts

Restore the vintage sound

We carry mainly NOS (new old stock) tubes for musicians and studio professionals to restore that original sound many of us are looking for.
Tubes in real NOS-quality are hard to come by nowadays, but we are constantly on the search to find the best vintage gear for you.

Studio Tubes & Parts

Studio tube rolling

Rolling 6L6 versus EL34 and other types

One of the most frequent questions we hear: Can I swap an EL34/KT88/KT77/KT66/5881/6CA7 for a 6L6?
Well as often, it depends. Some amps are switchable so you can choose which type to use. If you do not have this feature it is getting tricky.

The EL34 are more demanding in terms of necessary heater power. So putting an EL34 or 6CA7/KT77 (the US and UK designations for the EL34) into an amp designed around 6L6 is usually not a good idea. It will most likely kill your amp sooner or later.
While putting a 6L6 variants into a EL34 is less harmful. You just need to bear in mind that the specs are rather different. So, the 6L6 will not work at its optimum if you are not able to adjust at least the grid voltage.

Running the 6L6 out of spec will most likely not harm your amp but may lead more distortion and to a comparably shorter life of the 6L6.

Can these tubes be exchanged?

Depending on the amps design an EL34 amp may also take KT66/88-types and 5881. But again, it depends. If your amp runs rather “hot” with the EL34 it may not have sufficient reserves to run the KTs.

Want to know more? We will talk about this soon in more detail in our blog.