TC50 EL34 vs 6L6 Comparison Video

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DWAKO

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For those of you interested in hearing the difference between EL34 and 6L6 tubes in the TC50, check out the video in the link below. My good buddy Eric is starting up a YouTube channel and I helped him with this video. He has a ton of TC50 content on his channel, so show him some love by hitting subscribe!

Thanks!

https://youtu.be/C0t28EZwx3s
 
Off to a good start. Great video. Thank you. However, I would not limit with just the two Mesa offering of power tubes as Mesa does have other tubes that can be used in the TC-50. Mesa EL-34 STR447 stock tube, what color ? there is also the Mesa NOS Siemens EL-34 STR450, 6L6 STR 440 is one but there is also the 5881 STR425 and last but not least would be the 6V6 STR425. All of these have their own characteristics and will have a different effect on sound as well as feel (hard to capture in sound or video). Then there are other variants outside of the Mesa power tubes, KT77 and 6CA7 and many other variants of the 6L6GC tube.

It would be great to demonstrate midi setup and use (if you have not done so already). There are so many options to cover from speaker choice to different tubes, not to mention the guitar and pickups.
 
Thanks! Yeah, there are almost an infinite number of variables and comparisons we could make, but we also wanted the video to be a reasonable length. So we focused on the current Mesa offerings of EL34 and 6L6 to keep things as concise as possible. Are there other tube offerings I would prefer more? Yes. But this is more of a foundational approach. We will definitely do more in the future focusing on other details of the amp with different variables.
 
Understood. I am only offering a suggestion for future videos if you have plans to continue with the TC-50. What you did with just two of the common tubes is great. There may be other requests to have some coverage of the other Mesa offerings like the 6V6 STR417 and possibly the Mesa 5881 STR425.

My one reason to get the TC-50 was the use of 6V6 tubes, since that adds to the variety of tone and gain character you can obtain from the amp which is different than the EL34 or the 6L6. the 5881 were just there so why not give them a try since they do not have the same fundamental tone of the Chinese 6L6 tube (Mesa STR440). My preference is the EL34 but the 6V6 is more fun than you may realize. I leave that up to you. Excellent work on the video. Thanks again.
 
If you're going to do comparisons, it usually works better if the comparisons are back to back. Doing a demo of the neck pickup sound with EL34s, then doing a bunch of other stuff before you show the same neck pickup comparison with 6L6s means that I've already forgotten what the neck pickup sounded like by the time you get around to doing it again. I can jump back and forth to try to A/B the correct samples (neck cleans against neck cleans, bridge crunchy against bridge crunchy), but that's harder to do in a video that lacks detailed captions.

The parts I listened seemed good and well recorded, but I didn't get much out of it because I got tired of clicking back and forth on the timeline and stopped watching.
 
screamingdaisy said:
If you're going to do comparisons, it usually works better if the comparisons are back to back. Doing a demo of the neck pickup sound with EL34s, then doing a bunch of other stuff before you show the same neck pickup comparison with 6L6s means that I've already forgotten what the neck pickup sounded like by the time you get around to doing it again. I can jump back and forth to try to A/B the correct samples (neck cleans against neck cleans, bridge crunchy against bridge crunchy), but that's harder to do in a video that lacks detailed captions.

The parts I listened seemed good and well recorded, but I didn't get much out of it because I got tired of clicking back and forth on the timeline and stopped watching.

Hi, the video was very well done and informative. However, I was also skipping around a lot to get more of a back to back comparison. Although editing is more of a chore, it is great to have x1 to y1, and then x2 to y2 and so on so the ear can directly compare the single variable that is being studied (the tubes in this case). I hope this doesn’t come off as negative, because the video was really helpful and well done and I did enjoy having the different pick-up positions in there as another comparison point.
 
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