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Confusing Number of 6L6 Tubes on Market

O

Onelasttime

Sr. Member
Aug 3, 2011
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Ok so I have been out of 2 way radio for some time. I apprenticed in H.S. at a shop that did warranty work for all the major Amateur company's, local Business, Police, and aging Radar Equipment at the Airports. So it has been some time since I have had to shop for tubes for a customer and a lot has changed.

In this case I am putting together a system for my 12 year old who is taking class's at the local Red Cross to become a true Amateur. The local CB crowd is really bad with the vulgarity in my area. So I have an old tube amp I am going to set up for 10/12/6 meter operation.

It is a Kris Power Pump and according tot he current owner it has 1 x 6L6GC driving 2 x 6L6GC tubes.

So I googled 6L6 and the variants of that and wow tons of options....Seems that since the Guitar AMP's are now going tubed again that the choices of manufacture's and variation's is almost endless. Their are 2 Russian, 1 Slovakian, 2 Chinese tube manufacture's and a ton of re-branded tubes. Some companies have enough sales that they have variation made to their specification's and so on so a lot of variable and little hard data.

I am not out to get more power if that was the case I would just buy a bigger amp or would have gone solid state with switching power supply etc...... I want to get tubes that have the most robust, durable design built with the best materials and rare elements and such. This is more then enough amp for 12 year old. I value clean sound, low distortion, and long life over all else.

I am currently looking at Winged C 6L6GC, Ruby 6L6GC-MSTR, RoHS 6L6GC as sold by Bergura(sp). All the information I can find is really biased towards musicians that are purposefully over driving their amps to get distortion so not really useful for what I want to know?

Also since this is a 110 Volt base amp is their any value in going with a ruggedized military grade product similar to JAN standards? I am guessing the extra rugged design would not do much in my application.

Thanks guys and gals!
 

I am not a techie type...but I do not think 6L6s are RF tubes.....tube guitar amp yes.....linear no.
 
Eastside said:
I am not a techie type...but I do not think 6L6s are RF tubes.....tube guitar amp yes.....linear no.
Click to expand...

The 6L6 series of tubes are what are known as beam power tubes more commonly known as sweep tubes. They serve quite well in RF service as long as the ratings are not exceeded. The 6L6 is quite old and eventually was developed into the 807 and the commonly known 6146B.
 
Captain Kilowatt said:
The 6L6 series of tubes are what are known as beam power tubes more commonly known as sweep tubes. They serve quite well in RF service as long as the ratings are not exceeded. The 6L6 is quite old and eventually was developed into the 807 and the commonly known 6146B.
Click to expand...

V8Vega said:
It's the final in a Tram D201.
Click to expand...

All I know is the 6L6 is the power tubes in my Carvin X100B amp head....12AX7 are the preamp tubes......I have a old Kris Mach 3B in the closet that uses 6JG6A and 6BQ5 and 6LQ6.
I know the 6BQ5 is the same as the EL84 which is the driver tube in the Kris MACH 3B and is also used in the preamp section in a lot of guitar amps. :)
 
What is the source of rf that you wish to amplify?

Most HF ham rigs already make more power than can be had from a pair of 6L6s.
 
If the amp really uses 6L6 power tubes, the biggest thing to be concerned with is the glass envelope size. The Chinese tubes use a very small glass envelope that is too close to the anode for good cooling. This makes the anode run hot and can actually melt the glass envelope if driven hard.

Svetlana makes some good 6L6 tubes with large envelopes and gold grid wires. They are tailored for the audio crowd and have excellent mechanical construction to reduce microphonics. Low quality tubes can be affected by the heavy vibrations present inside an electric guitar amp. These vibrations can be amplified by the tube if the mechanical construction is poor. This creates a type of feedback almost as though you were applying the output signal back to the input. Not a problem in most RF amps.
 
Kris Inc. Power Pump

The amp originally had a 6JG6 driving a pair of 6LQ6/6JE6 series tubes. Yes there are some cross reference tubes that can be used in place of those originals but the 6L6 is not one. They don't even use anywhere close to the same tube sockets as the originals are Novar and the 6L6 uses an octal socket. Therefore if it has 6L6's in it someone has modified it and IMHO opinion butchered the amp. More than likely though the owner is clueless as to what tubes the amp uses. Buyer beware.
 
Nagant said:
Kris Inc. Power Pump

The amp originally had a 6JG6 driving a pair of 6LQ6/6JE6 series tubes. Yes there are some cross reference tubes that can be used in place of those originals but the 6L6 is not one. They don't even use anywhere close to the same tube sockets as the originals are Novar and the 6L6 uses an octal socket. Therefore if it has 6L6's in it someone has modified it and IMHO opinion butchered the amp. More than likely though the owner is clueless as to what tubes the amp uses. Buyer beware.
Click to expand...
I agree. The original amp never used 6L6 type tubes. If the owner modified it to use 6L6 tubes it is then butchered beyond restoration and is worthless.

I suggest that the owner is totally clueless and simply has no idea what tubes it uses. Open the amp and look at it, and examine the tubes. If they have plate caps, they're sweep tubes (most likely the original 6LQ6 types).

Good luck.
 

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