Great!
I was meaning to hop on here and ask you if you thought they were the "perfect match" or merely an aesthetic thing. I played it through several and it sounded fantastic through all of them. They really do look nice together though lol, so I am seriously considering it just for that purpose alone and its really not going to take up much space anyway!
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Oh forgot to add I did not change any of the tubes. It came with stock tubes from sweet water I've never heard of before actually. Why do you have a reccomendation?
The DG Cab -
I didn’t buy the cab at first; I bought the head as one of the “first 20” (it came with NOS Brimar 12AX7s, so how could I resist?), and used it with a couple of Mesa cabs I had in the studio, a Recto 212 horizontal cab, and a semi-open back oversized 112. Sounded great, I had no complaints, but I had a hankering to try the DG cab, because it’s ported, solid pine, larger than most 212s, and I figured it might be cool.
I find the pine construction and porting really accentuate the warm tones and vintage vibe of the head. In fact, I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a second one and loading it with a pair of Celestion Alnico 90s, just to have another option! Another nice thing is that this pine cab is really light!
I thought the DG cab improved the overall sound I was getting over the Mesa cabs I was using previously, but they were probably not the best choice in the first place. I’d bet that the amp would also sound good with something like a Divided by 13 open back, or some other vintage style cab.
I used the Mesa cabs mainly because they were already here. I also tried the DG30 with a PRS pine closed back 112, and a PRS birch closed back 212, but it really sounds better with the ported pine cab that matches it.
So yes, I like it a lot. Now I’m spoiled.
Tubes -
My head came with NOS Brimar 12AX7s from the factory, and NOS EL84Ms. It has a JJ 12AT7 as the reverb driver. The Brimars are great with it. I did experiment a little with a JJ in the phase inverter position, and it’s a bit more raw that way, which isn’t a bad thing, but I think I like the Brimar in that position a little more.
I also have a set of NOS GE 12AX7s stashed away, and a NOS Mullard 12AT7 that I’ll try if the Brimars ever wear out, which so far they’ve shown no sign of doing. I did replace a Brimar that became microphonic shortly after I got the amp. PRS sent out a Brimar replacement, no issues, which was cool. I got the GEs because I had good luck with them in my old Two-Rocks, have an NOS GE set in my Mesa Lone Star (where they took the amp from “pretty nice amp” to “Wow, really nice amp!”), and because the Brimars are tough to find.
The only NOS EL34Ms I’ve found are 80s Russian tubes, and I think that’s what the amp came with, so I got a spare set. But EL84Ms are rated for 50,000 hours, and after nearly 4 years, my original set are still going strong. Granted, most of my sessions aren’t like a 3 hour show, I only play for an hour or so max, so my amps don’t get a lot of hard use. I’m pretty easy on them, so tubes tend to last a bit longer.
In the HXDA I’m using NOS Mullard 12AX7s and NOS Siemens EL34s. I know I should probably go with the double-getter NOS Mullard EL34s, but I keep shying away from pulling the trigger on a $1000 pair of tubes! The Siemens are awfully close to the Mullard sound, and I have a few sets as spares. The Siemens are probably OEM from RFT East Germany, though the box doesn’t say, and tube identification is kind of a mystical topic for me! However, it’s said that Mullard did a lot of OEM for Siemens back in the day. In any case, Siemens used their tubes in pretty sophisticated equipment, like medical applications, etc., where tube quality mattered, so I have some trust in these.