Help me ID this tube - please

[AmpAwe]

This came in an EL84 amp (a P1 ax84.com amp) - I have looked about and can not find an example of what it is - Can anyone help ID this tube, in attached image. Thanks

DSCN3087BEST.JPG

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[xtian]

6P14P in English, eq to 7189, drop in replacement for EL84, but higher voltage tolerance:

https://www.thetubestore.com/lib/thetub ... -Sheet.pdf

[wpaulvogel]

As stated above.
It was made by the Reflector factory in Russia. These are very desirable EL84 “equivalent” tubes. They are beam tetrodes though, versus the true pentode design of an EL84. I like these better than el84’s. If yours has the flying saucer getter, it’s the cream of the crop.
You can still buy these exact tubes on eBay and the seller is in Russia.

[AmpAwe]

Awesome!! Thank you so much for the help. It is really nice to know they are good ones, the amp does sound pretty good, better than I expected. I am a fan of the EL84 and now I guess a fan of the 6P14P. I can read up about them now that, with your help, I know what they are. I will be trying to find and figure out if they are "flying saucer getter" type. Maybe someone here can tell me how to tell about "flying saucer getter" ID.

Maybe these type of tubes could rescue a Crate V33 amp that just sounds terrible - I knew when I bought it for $150 that it was not to be a good sounding amp, and must say it is worse than expected. I bought it for its parts, with thought of venturing into Amp Building. And I got the AX84 as similar for parts with the speculation of adding a gain stage or something to it.

Thanks, much appreciate the info.

[AmpAwe]

I found the image below on the web...and it matches the image of the tube posted in previous post in this thread.

"UFO Getter = Always Russian"

06.JPG

[Phil_S]

Maybe these type of tubes could rescue a Crate V33 amp that just sounds terrible - I knew when I bought it for $150 that it was not to be a good sounding amp, and must say it is worse than expected. I bought it for its parts, with thought of venturing into Amp Building.

If the existing tubes are spent, new tubes can make a meaningful difference. If the tubes that came with the amp still have reasonable useful life, then new tubes aren't likely to help. You'll need a quad of EL84's and that will set you back something between $40 and $100 depending on where you buy and what you choose.

What makes it sound like poo is open to speculation. There are many things in the signal chain that contribute to the sound of it. I wonder, for example, are the speakers any good? If you are able to plug into another cab of the same impedance, you might find out.

I don't know this particular amp, but am an a bit of an upcycling junkie when it comes to guitar amps. If the amp parts are in working order, $150 was a very good price. At a glance, I suggest you have a treasure chest of things you can use for a new build:
2 speakers
power transformer
output transformer
cabinet
possibly the chassis depending on size and cutouts -- I would toss it if it is less than 2" high simply because it will be hard to work with and if the holes are in the wrong place for whatever you do, it isn't worth the effort.

If you can keep and use all of these things, you can build a nice 30-50W amp for not much of an additional investment. I'm not sure how hard I'd work at saving this amp, but you'll probably need new tubes anyway, and the speaker swap is basically fast and free if you have another cab to do it with, so why not start by doing that much?

[AmpAwe]

Hey Phil_S – Thanks for input on my V33, very much appreciated! It is a head, so no speaker or cab, but even chassis are expensive these days, so I would look at its reuse, if that could work out. I certainly did have in mind using all its components to build a much better tone. I was looking at kits but can't spend so much these days, so I though to look for very inexpensive amps for components.

I have a Crate V32 which has a really hot sweet voxy gain channel vol at 8, a local band guitarist demoed that tone for me at a GC store. At the time I bought my Vintage Modern 2466 stack and not the little v32 combo, but I sure remembered that tone and then bought one several years later to run my left channel and I love it. Its tubes make a little noise now. I really hate that I have twice forgotten to turn my amps off for 24hrs in standby, didn’t do them any good, darn it! Before I cannibalize the v33 I will try the tubes from the v32, but like you said I don’t expect that to help it, much.

I have tried the v32 palomino cab speaker and some egnater cabs with v30 & Elite-80 those are pretty good sounding cabs, but did not help. That v33 head sounds really very bad, hard to believe they could screw up so bad with EL84’s. I mean an amp company? I recon that is the kind of thing that could take a company out of the game – eh?

I want to also take a stab at modifying this v33 to fix it. I have seen posts that there are some who has done what they call “Soldano SLO Mod” and there is a list of mods but the details are a bit lacking, for the inexperienced. I will also do a compare of the v32 vs v33 schematic and see where that takes me. If there may be something that I can see that could be modded to be like the v32, could be good experience. I am new at this, but have always done my own bias settings and have read the cautions and take it all very seriously. This could possible be pretty interesting.

[Phil_S]

I think you've got conclusive proof the V33 is poo. If this is a PCB amp, you may find attempts to mod the board frustrating. OTOH, you might get lucky and it will just be component swapping. You'll need to look and see. If it was mine, I'd remove the PCB and build a turret board for it. Then you can put whatever you like in there. Assuming the tube sockets are mounted to the PCB, you'll need to also get traditional tube sockets. The chassis may require some reinforcement plates to support more weight. There are lots of possibilities. Go have some fun with it!

[AmpAwe]

So I may do this in a number of steps, and if, at some point if it develops redeeming tonal value, that could be point to pause for a spell. Eventually would like to take a stab at a complete hand wire as you say likely turret board. But will take a look at the v32 for differences, they are supposed to be very similar. And so maybe can like you said just change some component values, etc...

The tube set that was in the v33 were all sovtek - presumably from the manufacture?

So far I just put in a different set of premium 12AX7 pre-tubes - JAN/GE in v1, Tubestore Preferred 7025 in v2, & Northern Electric in v3 - difference is hugely better, not an unbelievably great tone but really not to bad at all. Seriously VERY much better. It is still just to damn loud. I will have to try it again with ear plugs to dime it. That is one of the common review remarks for the v33 - LOUD. Seems like they built it for SPL and not tone somehow. Does anyone here know how that is done? I will try the jj el84 set from the v32, and I have the set of GrvTbs el84 whatever those actually are that came in the v32.

[Phil_S]

IMHO, anything over about 20W played in your home will be so freaking loud it will want to make you do something <different for everyone>. If you want to play it that loud, find a large space where you can dissipate some of the volume. If you don't want it so loud, that is a good reason to quit fooling around and build something else in the cab. OTOH, there is the simple pleasure of fixing something. There's no wrong approach here. Have some fun with it. Be safe. Good luck.

[AmpAwe]

Well after changing the power tubes to used groove tubes (having changed the pre-tubes as stated in previous post) - The v33 sounds like a completely different amp. It actually does sound quite good - not a terrible thing to have happen, eh!

I think I will try out some of the other cabs now. Thanks very much for the discussion - Cheers