How does KT88s in Marshall amps sound when tube breakup?

[Irön/Beast]

How does KT88s sound like in Marshall style working amp when they are in amps build around the use of such tubes and have all the voltage needed and proper transformers to handle the tubes and everything to make the tubes reach their potentional tube breakup, i know they give more headroom, they are pretty big tubes afterall but will they actually give less distortion and things like that when pushed really hard in amps build for use of them?

Let's say we take GEC KT88s, the old classics, then build a vintage style amp made to be driven by 4-6 of these tubes in powersection, we use a proper transformers to give them all current and voltage needed to make them sing, we have good speaker cabinets arranges in a stack figuration, then we have a Gibson style guitar with P.A.F style pickup reaching somewhere around 8-12 k ohms, then we use a clean boost plus a compressor(this raises the signal right?) and stuff like that, and then we crank the amp, the amp is no gain monster but probubly is a little bit sharper than lets say the last year JMP 2203 and have maybe more wattage(?), how great will these tubes actually sing when they are working really good?

We know EL34s, N.O.S in particular, can sound VERY good when pushed/cranked really hard, but how about with KT88s in proper figuration when everything is build around those tubes in an amp in vintage design?

They supposly have alot of bottom, more bass, not supposly as much fat midrange as EL34s, seemingly overall bigger in sound and have more headroom, i don't know if it's part of the size of the glass of the tube, but will these tubes actually have alot less distortion in the proper enviroment when pushed really hard or what?

Really curius

[somethin'else]

I think these are KT88s by '75 he switched? Don't sound like EL34s to me, way more body and tight top end

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ7CZ7nLWZ4[/youtube]

[johniss0001]

i agree no way in hell are those el34s in those amps it sounds a bit too clean with more headroom agreed. Now look at robert plant's mic it's a shure unidyne 545 one of my all time fav mics for vocals, guitars, snares it's what became the sm57

[jimmyride]

I read somewhere Jimmy ran those KT88 Marshalls really low on volume though. About 2.

[pb23r]

It is almost a certainty that those are KT88s. I have a Royal Amp MSG - basically a '69 Super Lead tweaked to achieve Page-like tones - that runs KT88s and results are impressive to the say the very least. Can't lay claim to Jimmy-like hands, but a decent LP, t-top & PAF will get you started. Big fan of the KT88 tube... my amp sounds quite full. And they are definitely cleaner than EL34's so you need to have your chops in good shape!!

BTW - i suspect that quote concerning turning the amp to "2 or 3" was taken out of context. I am guessing he was referring to "2 or 3 o'clock" (about seven or eight) on the volume. My MSG is sounds quite close at that level.

[jimmyride]

I saw some vids of a Zepp cover band and the guitarist was using this amp. And the HiWatt clone by the same company. Isn't that you? The tone was right there.

[pb23r]

that would be Eric, creator and owner of Royal Ampco.

I can't imagine how many hours Eric put into researching JPage stage amps. I have his 100 watt MSG (with KT88s) and like it very much!

[johniss0001]

Eric is the man when it comes to paige tones

[somethin'else]

yep, Eric is the bastard spawn of J.Page for sure! I think even he has some clips of trying the KT88s out. Myopic Void, that is.