Metropoulos Forum

Hi. I've been spending alot of time becoming informed about tubes in general and upgrading the Bogner Alchemist, specifically. I got this amp primarily for its tonal versatality and I'm almost very impressed with its quality of tones. I'd be really interested in your suggestions for tube replacements based on my intended requirements for tone(s) and well, the amp itself. I will be doing primarly 70's-80ish classic rock. I guess that means having a good sparkly clean tone that can handle some strumming and finger picking/arppegio's while retaining good string definition and openess. Right now, the sound gets a little congested when pushed hard on the clean channel, and could be a little more open. Not bad though. On the clean channel there is a "crunch" toggle switch that brings in V2. This puts things in the plexi/stevey Ray/ Little wing camp which I find extremely useful though the clip is just a bit harsh at higher gain setting in that "Crunch" mode. I wonder if there is a tube that would address the harshness element for V2 to make the crunch a little sweeter. When switching to Channel two, V3 comes in for the extra gain of this channel. I'm quite sure Channel 2 is the cascaded V1, V2 and V3. I find this channel quite good up until about 2-3 o'clock on the gain knob, where it starts to get say, "hairier/fizzy" and mushier. This sound I believe would be fine for more modern style distortion but, I'm looking towards getting a more solid drive with more punch and body. (Boy, its hard to find the adjectives for this!). I guess you could say, I don't have use for a "fizzy" type of overdrive; more of a heavy grind is probably a better way to describe what I'm going for. Here is the tube/function layout of the amp:
V1 - First stage, Channel 1 and Channel 2 / Second stage, Channel 1
V2 - Crunch stage, Channel 1 / Second stage, Channel 2
V3 - Third stage, Channel 2 / Fourth stage, Channel 2
V4 - Ext. FX loop
V5 - Power amp PI
V6 & V7 Power tubes / 6l6gc
I've heard that V1 and V2 are EH and V3 is a Ruby tube. The rest are generic Chinese tubes oh, and Ruby 6L6gc's.
Thanks for taking the time for this and I'm really interested in your recommendations for tubes (these are all 12x7's, currently) . I understand this is no exact science and different folks will like different things, but thats alright. I dont have the means to have a large tube section to experiment with right now so, I rely on an informed starting point. Thanks again, I really do appreciate your time!! PS I've learned form retubing and biasing my DRRI that I'm a fan of NOS tubes, but I would consider new production in the right spots!

Thanks,
Phil Donovan

Try this in the Tubes-section, Phil.

And just give it some time. Plenty of knowledge to be found.


If Tubetramp says Jump, I ask How high?

I'm personally a big fan of the 12 ax7EH.....Some say the reissue Tung Sols sound the best of the new 12 AX7s.......I like the EH so much that I havn't tryed em'......For power tubes the Sovtek 5881 is usually considered the best 6L6 type tube....The Chinese STRs are also a good 6L6..
It might even take KT66s without any modification --but look into it.


Then you can try NOS.....Maybe even KT 66s -but look into it.....

Hi!

I know it was a long time ago this post was published, but I take a chance that you read this:

I want to know if you got any recommendations regarding tubes in Alchemist. Your questions was spot on!

Gerangiro