Death of a 5AR4
The Ceriatone DC-30 gets a new rectifier
I fired up my trusty Ceriatone DC-30 after dinner on Sunday, hoping to get a bit of practicing in while my wife was giving the kids a bath. Powered up okay—heaters all aglow—but when I toggled from standby to play nothing happened. Silence. The relatively new Sovtec 5AR4 rectifier tube had gasped its last breath. Instead of just buying another 5AR4, which I did, I also picked up a plug-in Sovtec “SSR” solid-state rectifier. According to Tube Depot, the SSR should increase the plate voltage by 10-20%. What’s that… something like 30-60v in the DC-30.
My initial impressions are favorable. The amp sounds like it did before, though a bit more steely which is fine by me. I wouldn’t say the difference is huge, at least not to me, but I’m really enjoying the amp a little more now. I can use my PRS Cu22 Soapbar in the EF86 channel, set the channel volume at about 11:00 and then use the guitar’s volume to control the amount of gain and distortion—leave the volume at about 6-7 and it’s a good, overdriven sound; roll back a bit and it cleans up; roll the volume up to 8 and it starts to crunch up and distort nicely; dimed, it screams. Cool. This is why I haven’t bought a new amp.