Pulled the old SLA-30 out of mothballs and fired it up for the first time in 3 years. Now that I'm in a smaller place, I want to see how it sounded. Better than I expected. At 30wpc it is my most powerful tube amp. It can really crank in this smaller room.
Produces a very smooth sound, perhaps even too smooth and lacking a bit of detail. A very classic "tubey" sound. I have heard many people state that EL84s and 6V6s sound similar. Not in my two amps. In my Inspire high output amp the tubes are driven very hard, right up to their limits. To my ears 6V6s sound a bit strident and forward in it. As compared to the very smooth EL84s in this amp, and in my Inspire SE EL84 amp.
Hard for me to believe that I've owned the SLA-30 for over 20 years now.
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