H&K 18w tubemeister preamp tubes - updated

fastonebaz · December 2016

Geetar player of 25 yrs here. I have the Hughes and Kettner tubemeister 18W head (into 2x12 celestion G12 cab) and a loaded pedalboard (tuner wah noisegate overdrive in front of amp, chorus delay in fx loop). Owned it for 4 years now.

Ch1, the clean channel is superb. Great chiming brights easy to get jazz like noodling, strummy chords or funky wikachika. With a tubescreamer its hot blues territory with splendid note definition, pretty juicy notes and no muddiness, almost SRV tone and playability.

Switching over to ch2 for a little more saturation and sustain on the gain channel quickly loses note definition and muddies up a bit. I can't retain that bright not definition but with more drive.

Over the pasr 4 years I've tried a bunch of different overdrives, spent hours tweaking EQ and gain levels and tried 3 different makes of tubes. Currently using Cryo treated JJs (12ax7/EL84) and these give the greatest clean sound, just a bit muddy on the gain channel.

My questions:

a) When on clean channel does the amp only use the power tubes, or also the preamp tubes?

b) Anyone found better note definition on CH2 using other makes of tubes, if so which ones?

thanks