I know that Ampeg still makes a V-4b, obviously modified to accept tubes that are readily available.
My question is, from when to when did Ampeg make the original V Series? From what I have seen on Ebay, the internet in general, and by the V-2 that I have, I have roughly concluded that they were made between 1968 and 1980. Anyone know of a timeline for these? Thanks for the help!
Ampeg V Series
I'm not positive you could be right but I think they started a little bit later, maybe 70 or 71 and ended in 1979 when Magnavox sold the company. The original SVT's were made from 1969 to 1979. What year is your V2?
I just looked in the new Ampeg book and it isn't even stated anywhere in there, except that they were made a little bit later than the SVT's which were made mid 69. Ron Wood was one of the first to use them with The Faces, Keith Richard used them on 'Exile on Main St. recorded in 1972.
I just looked in the new Ampeg book and it isn't even stated anywhere in there, except that they were made a little bit later than the SVT's which were made mid 69. Ron Wood was one of the first to use them with The Faces, Keith Richard used them on 'Exile on Main St. recorded in 1972.
Robert, I think you are probably pretty close. I have a reissue V-4BH from the first year of the reissue, 1996:
When I took it in to the experienced luthier here in town, he said it was very similar to the old V-4b's from the 70's, but a little lighter and with some differences in the board, wiring, etc. He hadn't seen a V-4b in a while and thought they were discontinued in the 70's. I know that doesn't help you zero in on the exact dates much, but helps confirm that you're in the ballpark.
My reissue V-4BH takes 4 5881's or 6L6's for power tubes. I have 6L6's in there now. I like it a lot - it has a sweet sound and you can really push those tubes hard without gettting too loud, since it's only 100 watts. I don't have any experience with the original ones, though.
When I took it in to the experienced luthier here in town, he said it was very similar to the old V-4b's from the 70's, but a little lighter and with some differences in the board, wiring, etc. He hadn't seen a V-4b in a while and thought they were discontinued in the 70's. I know that doesn't help you zero in on the exact dates much, but helps confirm that you're in the ballpark.
My reissue V-4BH takes 4 5881's or 6L6's for power tubes. I have 6L6's in there now. I like it a lot - it has a sweet sound and you can really push those tubes hard without gettting too loud, since it's only 100 watts. I don't have any experience with the original ones, though.
They made V4's for guitarists (they sound great, I don't know why more guitarists don't use them, I've always liked them better than Marshalls, V2's sound great too) with reverb in 1970 and I guess a lot of bass players were using them so in 1971 they took out the reverb and called them V4-B's. I always thought the tone centers on the tone controls were different but I guess not, I've never tried a V4 for bass though.
Bob, more guitarists use Marshalls because Marshall is so cheap that they once used one resistor to handle the screen grids on 4 output tubes. The money saved on build quality lets them give away amps to rock stars to make you think Marshall is the greatest. The new AVT amps have PCB pots with plastic shafts with plastic push-on knobs no more sturdy than a $100 TV set has. Marshall reminds me of another audio company: Bose. I'm sure the advertising budget far exceeds the engineering budget in both companies.
I haven't looked at it for a long time (it's stored in a Rubbermaid 44 gallon tote right now), but I wasn't able or probably wasn't looking hard enough to find a date code. I did, however, find the codes for the potometers, which were made in 1979. It has not been modified at all by me, and to my belief it has never been. Still has 7027's in it, Sovteks.
The company that my father once worked for had a night club, so he got to hear lots of bands that came through the club. His personal favorite sounding amps were the Ampegs. Like Bob said, Ampegs were once big with the Rolling Stones. You would think more guitarists would be using them. I guess Ampeg's propensity for strange tubes caused lots of repair problems later on, so some guitarists dumped them. Tubes like the 12DW7 are being built again in eastern Europe, and a NOS Mullard M8080/CV4058 is better than any 6C4 that Ampeg ever used in the past. I have a few NOS RCA 6C4 tubes at reasonable prices for those of you with Ampeg amps that need them. Considerably cheaper than the Mullard tubes. Go with the Mullards if price is no object. Conrad-Johnson in Virginia has them for $42/pair last time I checked. Maybe a bit less from Watford Valves in England. I believe I have 4 of the NOS RCA 6C4's and I will sell all for $30 + S&H. My stash of Mullard CV4058's will go to the grave with me unless I use them up in my C-J preamp first. Modern amps often sound best with modern tubes, but your old Ampegs will sound best with NOS tubes. I don't know anybody building new 6C4 tubes right now, so you Ampeg guys needing them had better build yourself a stash while you can. C-J went into competition against you when they put them in their new preamp, and they have a habit of stockpiling huge amounts of the best NOS tubes when they find them on the cheapo from surplus sources. They are the second biggest builder of audiophile tube amps in this country (A-R in MN is the biggest). Their other business is selling NOS tubes that have been culled from their cherry picking activities for their own amps and parts stockpiles. Watford and C-J are the only companies I know with these killer Mullard CV4058 tubes in stock. Billington Export in the UK may have some, but they have big minimum orders that most individuals don't want to meet. The CV4058 is the absolute best 6C4 type of tube in Ampeg and Hammond amps. Mullard built the CV4058 way beyond the standards the 6C4 was ever built to in this country, as they were specifically destined for portable British military walkie-talkies that got dropped and banged around a lot. I read the actual Mullard design spec sheets besides the recommendations of C-J and Watford. The likes of the CV4058 tube will probably never be seen again, as no industry exists that would pay the price to restart mass production. They sparkle in my C-J preamp, which retails now for around $2400 and is highly rated. The small inner detail the tubes pass is amazing. The difference between a 6C4 and CV4058 is reputedly very noticeable. I wouldn't know as my C-J preamp came with the upgraded Mullard tubes from the factory. The 6C4 and CV4058 do look different in construction and test out a bit differently in a tube tester. The 6C4 is half of a 12AU7 twin triode, but running on 6 volts heater current instead of 12 volts. You can modify your Ampeg SVT or whatever to use a 12AU7 in place of a 6C4 if you know what you are doing. However, the CV4058 should beat any current production 12AU7 in sound quality. The guaranteed lifespan was 10,000 hours in rough military use, so guitar amp use could see in excess of 20,000 hours, or over 20 years of constant 4-hour-per-day headbanging gigs. If you are an SVT freak, you owe it to yourself to try these tubes.
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soundmasterg
- RRF Consultant
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- Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2002 1:06 pm
Phillip, you should put a post about those tubes in the buy and sell area on this site and others if you're so eager to get rid of them? I can get some 6C4's from Antique Electronics Supply for $5 each all day long, but I already have a stash for my SVT.
Bob, the V4's and V4B's both sound nice for bass. They aren't an SVT, but almost any tube Ampeg amp will sound good to great for bass.
Bob, the V4's and V4B's both sound nice for bass. They aren't an SVT, but almost any tube Ampeg amp will sound good to great for bass.
I bought my 6C4 tubes from a dealer that sells the better NOS types. A lot of 6C4 tubes are microphonic, etc. I'm not really in a hurry to get rid of them as they are RCA tubes and the next best to the Mullards. A lot of the NOS tubes left on the market are culls from previous cherry picking operations. Vintage Tube Services sells the best tested NOS audio tubes. He says he culls as much as 75% in certain types. You are actually better off buying the better modern tubes in most cases if you can't test the NOS tubes yourself. The 6C4 has no modern equivalent, so we are stuck with what's out there. Fortunately, there is little demand. All the good NOS output tubes are basically gone at anything approaching reasonable prices except for isolated stashes that show up here and there. At the prices a lot of tested and guaranteed NOS tubes go for, you would be better off selling them and buying several times the amount of modern tubes. Even tubes from the pre WWII years like the 300B are in current production from several manufacturers.
P.S. Greg, the 6C4 was not invented for audio use and such tubes often have mechanical resonances in the audio band. 12AX7, 12AT7, 12AY7, 12DW7 and 12AY7 are other tubes made for general radio receiving tube duty that consumer audio manufacturers just grabbed and used. Audiophiles learned to spot the best manufacturers and dates of manufacture over the years. Later production runs were often inferior to early runs as manufacturers just did them to satisfy government contracts to government specs. Perhaps the heaters were changed from AC types to DC types. I have some Philips 12AT7A tubes that will not work in vintage amps with AC heaters. They were made for late production military equipment with filtered and regulated heater supplies.
Conrad-Johnson puts high temperature red rubber o-rings around the tubes they supplied in my preamp. It will control high frequency ringing in the glass envelope. This is a common problem in RF tubes that were adapted to audio use by cost-cutting mass market manufacturers. Basically, preamp tubes specifically for high fidelity audio use were never invented, but several types of output tubes do exist. The 6L6 was never meant for high fidelity audio. The KT66 was the adaptation of the 6L6 to high quality audio use, and was the world's first high quality audio specific tube that was not a triode. Since small signal RF tubes were triodes anyway, which are the most linear type of tube, they filled the bill quite well as long as they were electrically and mechanically quiet. I'm not seeing such tweaks as tube dampers among guitarists much, but they are common among audiophiles. Tap your tubes with a pencil (not hard) when you have your amp turned on. You may be surprised just how microphonic some of your tubes really are. I have found that most of the newer tubes designed for audio use will surpass most of those older NOS tubes that have been picked over.
Antique Electronic Supply sells NOS tubes mainly to the people who restore old radios, TV's, console stereos's and such. Their criteria for tubes is lower than mine. They just guarantee the tubes pass electrical tests. Boutique guitar amps and high end stereo are whole different ballgames. AES and other mass dealers will buy the electrically sound NOS culls from the audiophile cherry pickers. The modern tubes that AES sells are the same as everybody else sells. I use some AES parts in my old classic tube amps. You don't want modern components if you want to maintain the classic sound and look. Some boutique amps use the old components, like woven lacquered cotton insulated wiring. But as far as NOS tubes go, buying from AES is a crapshoot if high quality is your goal. A lot of the rare tubes will be pullouts that passed quick basic electrical tests, as that is all that's left on the market. I called them, and they don't pay diddly squat for most NOS tubes they buy from individuals, so nobody with good tubes has a reason to sell to them.
Buying up big government stashes at bargain prices and such is what NOS tube dealers look for. C-J founded a company on this principal. Both of the founders were economists who worked for the government when they started the company. They designed tube amps around good surplus preamp tubes that were dumped on the market cheaply and in quantity. They chose certain tubes based on listening tests. Nobody much in the audio world was competing with them for 5965 or other such weird commercial/military tubes. A lot of those tubes were much higher quality than the more common types used by audio manufacturers during the tube era. The Mullard CV4058 is a recent example, and only C-J has so far designed new audio gear around this tube.....probably because they own most of the stash. Built to a higher standard for critical applications, stockpiled until no longer needed, then dumped for whatever the high bid happened to be. The value of the tubes are multiplied several times over when a high quality instrument is designed around them. A tube substitution book might be one of the best audio investments you ever make, if NOS tubes are your bag.
Conrad-Johnson puts high temperature red rubber o-rings around the tubes they supplied in my preamp. It will control high frequency ringing in the glass envelope. This is a common problem in RF tubes that were adapted to audio use by cost-cutting mass market manufacturers. Basically, preamp tubes specifically for high fidelity audio use were never invented, but several types of output tubes do exist. The 6L6 was never meant for high fidelity audio. The KT66 was the adaptation of the 6L6 to high quality audio use, and was the world's first high quality audio specific tube that was not a triode. Since small signal RF tubes were triodes anyway, which are the most linear type of tube, they filled the bill quite well as long as they were electrically and mechanically quiet. I'm not seeing such tweaks as tube dampers among guitarists much, but they are common among audiophiles. Tap your tubes with a pencil (not hard) when you have your amp turned on. You may be surprised just how microphonic some of your tubes really are. I have found that most of the newer tubes designed for audio use will surpass most of those older NOS tubes that have been picked over.
Antique Electronic Supply sells NOS tubes mainly to the people who restore old radios, TV's, console stereos's and such. Their criteria for tubes is lower than mine. They just guarantee the tubes pass electrical tests. Boutique guitar amps and high end stereo are whole different ballgames. AES and other mass dealers will buy the electrically sound NOS culls from the audiophile cherry pickers. The modern tubes that AES sells are the same as everybody else sells. I use some AES parts in my old classic tube amps. You don't want modern components if you want to maintain the classic sound and look. Some boutique amps use the old components, like woven lacquered cotton insulated wiring. But as far as NOS tubes go, buying from AES is a crapshoot if high quality is your goal. A lot of the rare tubes will be pullouts that passed quick basic electrical tests, as that is all that's left on the market. I called them, and they don't pay diddly squat for most NOS tubes they buy from individuals, so nobody with good tubes has a reason to sell to them.
Buying up big government stashes at bargain prices and such is what NOS tube dealers look for. C-J founded a company on this principal. Both of the founders were economists who worked for the government when they started the company. They designed tube amps around good surplus preamp tubes that were dumped on the market cheaply and in quantity. They chose certain tubes based on listening tests. Nobody much in the audio world was competing with them for 5965 or other such weird commercial/military tubes. A lot of those tubes were much higher quality than the more common types used by audio manufacturers during the tube era. The Mullard CV4058 is a recent example, and only C-J has so far designed new audio gear around this tube.....probably because they own most of the stash. Built to a higher standard for critical applications, stockpiled until no longer needed, then dumped for whatever the high bid happened to be. The value of the tubes are multiplied several times over when a high quality instrument is designed around them. A tube substitution book might be one of the best audio investments you ever make, if NOS tubes are your bag.
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soundmasterg
- RRF Consultant
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- Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2002 1:06 pm
Thanks Phillip. I knew all that about AES and NOS stuff already. Having said that, I've never had a problem with any of the tubes I've gotten from them. I actually had more problems with stuff from New Sensor until they started their new testing process. No problems with them since.
I've got an old Dynaco Stereo 70 to restore and modify, and an RCA victor tube console stereo to do the same to also (not modding this one). Then add in a number of guitar and bass amp projects and I have a lot of stuff to do! Not enough time to play my Rickenbackers....
I've got an old Dynaco Stereo 70 to restore and modify, and an RCA victor tube console stereo to do the same to also (not modding this one). Then add in a number of guitar and bass amp projects and I have a lot of stuff to do! Not enough time to play my Rickenbackers....
A guitarist I used to be in a band with said that the best thing he ever did for his sound was to get rid of his V4 and replace it with a JCM900. Of course, he probably had cheap sh*tty new tubes in the V4, but he played it for me before he sold it, and the sound struck me as kind of "crispy"; lots of sizzle, but not enough depth or "oomph"; not at all rich or smooth. Based on that experience, I'd be inclined to avoid the V-series for guitars, but that one experience may not be properly representative (YMMV etc.).
My basses are Rickenbackers. My synthesizers and recording gear are analog.