robbins67 Posted April 4, 2023 Share Posted April 4, 2023 I recently purchased a Spider Valve MKII HD100 and it is having issues with volume control. I can barely turnup the Master volume and volume on my guitar and it will rattle my walls. Guitar and cables are good, tested in my other amp. I am new to tube amps and my research indicates that for a casual player the tubes should be replaced every 1-2 years. How can you tell the age of the tubes? I fell like these are the original tubes. Amp head has a build date of 8/1/2009. All 6 tubes have clear glass. I have attached a pic of one of the tubes and all of them have the same markings. Thanks for the help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indyj_son Posted December 16, 2023 Share Posted December 16, 2023 These amp are notorious sketchy with the master volume. One symptom I've noticed when the power tubes start to go bad is volume variance. It will go loud then soft and just not stay consistent. You may try new tubes but something to try before that is to check the channel volume level. You can roll back the channel volume so the master is not so drastic. That being said, Line 6 usually recommends keeping the pre-amp (channel) volume as high as possible for the best signal to noise ratio, The thing I do which has worked wonders is to use a rolled off volume pedal in the effects loop. This lets you push power tubes a bit more and gets you out of that super sensitive area of the master volume control from 0 to 1 or 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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