Max B+ for modern 6L6's

[fusionbear]

Hello guys. I am thinking of building a clean amp powered by a pair of 6L6's, but I want to get the maximum reliable wattage out of modern tubes. What has been your experience? I know how to read the charts, but I want "real world" experience. The reason I bring this up is that I love the way the clean channel sounds on the old Mesa Boogie MKIIC+, but those put about 506vdc on the 6L6's which would fry most modern production tubes. I was thinking about using a stock Marshall power transformer which gives about 470-490vdc.

Any experience would be greatly appreciated...

[tubeswell]

The russkie 6P3S-e (with the wafer-thin black base) can handle higher voltages (but not the 6P3S), even tho both are 20W tubes. Same basic innards as a Sovtek 5881 WXT (I found out the other day). I have found them to be ultra reliable in my bluesbreaker (as long as they are biased as 20W tubes) FWIW - the plates are sitting at around 450

[coolidge]

SED Wing =C= 6L6 are spec for 500v max, I'm not aware of any other new 6L6 tubes rated as high or higher. Many are lower.

I ran into this problem with EL34's on Marshalls also. While most new EL34 tubes are rated 800v on the plates the screens are only rated 450v, again except for the SED Wing =C= EL34's which are rated 500v on the screens. I have run EL34's rated at 450v screens but they spit sputter and don't sound all that happy. The SED Wing =C= work perfectly with screen voltage around 490v-498v.

[fusionbear]

I think I will try the =C= 6L6's and see how they work. I am going for tone and reliability. I like the way KT88's sound too, so if the 6L6's can't hang, I'll switch to KT88's. The KT88's have a similar sweet tone and just swap out the output transformer to match.

[mike9]

I have JJ's in my SFSR UL and it has 500+V on the B+. No problem with these tubes at all.

[Structo]

I ran SED Winged C 6L6 in my D'lite for a long time.

Out of a handful of brands that was my favorite pair in that amp.
Very clean sounding tube that didn't seem to color the tone like other tubes did.

It's too bad they raised their prices so much.
I would have liked to run a quad in my 100w amp I built.

[briane]

No prob winged c or JJ.

I run my amps in the just under 500v. 460-470v DC sounds best to me.