a good low wattage EL34 amp... or poweramp

[El Chiguete]

I want to know if you guys know of a good low wattage EL34 amp... or poweramp?

I like the tone of the EL34 tubes (specially when I played my MP-1 thru the loop of a Marshall 2550) but for the setup that I want to have a normal 50w-100w power section because it will be just over doing it since I'll be using it just to get the dry tone + tube poweramp tone in a line signal to a mixer.

[GuitarBuilder]

Marshall EL34 50/50

[Systematic Chaos]

I want to know if you guys know of a good low wattage EL34 amp... or poweramp?

I like the tone of the EL34 tubes (specially when I played my MP-1 thru the loop of a Marshall 2550) but for the setup that I want to have a normal 50w-100w power section because it will be just over doing it since I'll be using it just to get the dry tone + tube poweramp tone in a line signal to a mixer.

Low wattage and EL34 (or 6L6)....that´s the catch.
"The" EL34 tone you refer to comes from a pair of EL34s in a Push/Pull configuration. With a plate voltage of commonly around 375-450V, this would result in 50W (under perfect conditions). Given the fact that you would have to run the tubes pretty hot to achieve these perfect conditions, it´s even more common that a pair of EL34 in any common guitar amp would run around 60-80% of its max plate dissipation (>>Bias adjust).
So we´re talking about roughly 40W.
To get this distinctive EL34 sound you have to push the tubes to make them work and shine. A 50W Marshall head with this config can already be damn loud.
Bottom line: EL34 tube power amp tone vs low wattage : ZIP.
Most lower wattage (but still, 20w tube power is loud) tube poweramp designs utilize EL84 tubes (Mesa 20/20 Dynawatt, Marshall 20/20, "old" Engl 2x20 or 2x35) or 6V6 (lower wattage Fender Amps). But these sound different than EL34.
Recently, low wattage amps using "power scaling" have become very popular (Suhr Badger, Engl Gigmaster, Hughes & Kettner Tonemeister, various Boogies,....).
The Suhr Badger 30 e.g. uses an EL34 based power amp design than can be "scaled down" to "low wattage"....but seriously, that lil amp goes for 2000€ over here  :crazy:
I don´t know of any rack poweramp with power scaling.
There´s a couple though with a "Half-Power" (Mesa Fifty/Fifty, Engl) feature.
But even the "Half-Pwr" on the Fifty/Fifty (15W per channel) is loud.

YMMV....

[rnolan]

Hey El, as SC says 50w Marshall is very loud (e.g. my 1972 Marshall 50w lead head (2 x EL34 or 6CA7s)), I had to use a Tom Scholz power soak so I could be in the same room as it (no master vol).  The Carvin TS100 will run either 6L6 or EL34 (50w per channel), sounds nice turned down, I've never had it past 3/4 with real drums (miked kick/snare) and 2 guitars, very nice sounding versatile (and can buy them new amp).
Alternately, the low power EL34/6CA7 amps tend to be the older HiFi amps.  I had a pair of Mullard (they designed/built amps BTW in their day) 20w mono blocks with a QUAD 22 valve preamp as my stereo for many years (was my Dad before I got it). Lovely amps though not easily rack mountable, I had them in a 4RU amp sleeve/rack for a while to use with MP1, but I had fans installed which were too loud as they were pretty soft compared to guitar amps.  But these HiFi amps are designed to be very clean.  There were many tube power amps around in those days, the English ones were often EL34 based, maybe you can try one ?

[El Chiguete]

Thats the answer I knew I was going to get but wanted to know if someone had more info on this.

So my question now is: is the EL84 the closest thing to an EL34? or is there another tube out there that does the tone of an EL34 at low wattage better?

[kawai2g4b]

The only EL84 power amp that i know of is the Mesa 20/20.

I would recommend the Carvin Tube 100...I have been using mine a lot over the past month.

[MarshallJMP]

I have marshall 20/20 with EL84 tubes,sounds really good and can be found fairly cheap.The one i have was Jur's amp so it has a special vibe  ;) I use it to do all my ADA testing.

[rnolan]

Hey El, nothing will sound the same as a EL34 (except maybe a 6CA7 lol) and the variances we discuss re input tubes equally apply to various EL34s
As I said lots of low wattage (~20w) power amp designs used them for HiFi, they would, and do, (I tried the Mullard mono blocks that were my stereo) work fine with MP1/2, add some warmth (as does Carvin TS100  :thumb-up: ). And you can easily drive them hard, they are not expecting ADA output voltage  >:D

Reminds me of one of my setups at 14yrs (ish, long time ago..) Guit > Mic SS preamp (kit I built) > cristal input into old tube radiogram (5 w out) > SS kit (again I built) 100w poweramp > 2 x 20w Phillips twin cone hi fi speakers. Sounded so hot (unfortunately fried the speakers...  :facepalm: and good lesson at 14 lol, don't shove a very compressed 100 w ish signal into 40 w worth of speakers, though sounded  >:D great until they died)

[MarshallJMP]

And hifi speakers have tweeters and these don't like distortion signals at all.Also found this out the hard way when i was young. :lol:

[rnolan]

Absolutely MJMP, these were Phillips 12" hifi 20w twin cones so lots of top end and IIRC 16ohm so even better  >:D , basically I blew the f##k out of them  :( (the speaker fuse blue 3 times, I ran out of fuses, my mate "drummer" said use foil from cigarette packet, worked  :whoohoo!: not for long though) BTW Dad wasn't impressed  :bow:
Though, the sound you get when running radiogram 5 w speaker tube output into 1 V SS 100 w power amp input (very bad gain structure BTW) is awesome  :whoohoo!: albeit not long lived lol

[rickeb1]

The only EL84 power amp that i know of is the Mesa 20/20.

I would recommend the Carvin Tube 100...I have been using mine a lot over the past month.

The Peavey Classic 50/50 power amp uses EL84s.