Avalon sp 737 help needed

[ronydarippa]

Sell the Avalon get a used great river. And you have extra 1200 to spend.. That's what I did. Never looked back.. My 2 cents.. Gd luck.

[pzhuravel]

I have uln2 with two pre's avalon has great qualities with the right tubes

[RKrizman]

Love mine as is.

-R

[Saxon-of-a-son]

I love my 737's with Amperex tubes, but they cost a bundle (close to $800). Mullards are great too, but probably cost more.

[pzhuravel]

Saxon how long do they last?

[Ward Pike]

Get yourself some used (but still have some life) RCA, Philips or Mullard tubes for less than you'd expect (10-20 a pop) and your 737 will definitely not make your ear wax boil!

[SteelyDani]

I bought two Great River and also kept my old 737 with factory tubes (changed two times) and never looked back.

I’m afraid that something is wrong with your unit,

[pzhuravel]

Why would you think something is wrong with it? I did a shoot out between uln2 and Avalon last night the noise floor is about the same, the pre itself on Avalon is decent, I just want a bit more warmth and presence for that in your face sound.. Perhaps I didn't really know how to use it. So I did some studying and figured out how to de-ess on it. It's a beutiful unit maybe has 50 hours on it that's all.

[phatbeatstudio]

To use the 737 as clean as it can be . Use as little preamp gain as possible and compensate with the output gain.

To get more colour or the in your face sound.
Drive the preamp gain hard and use much less otputgain.

High gain with low output gain should do this for you. Its a tube pre so there will be colour if you drive it properly..

Clean . minimum in . then required output
Colored. Drive pre hard on input gain to taste

[rogerbrain]

if yours is the 'newer' one with the 6299 tubes ..try the Genelex Gold Lions ...a bit cheaper than some high end nos and very consistent...and sound really good

[pzhuravel]

Is there a good place to buy them
With out overpaying ?

[SteelyDani]

Originally Posted by pzhuravel

Why would you think something is wrong with it? I did a shoot out between uln2 and Avalon last night the noise floor is about the same, the pre itself on Avalon is decent, I just want a bit more warmth and presence for that in your face sound.. Perhaps I didn't really know how to use it. So I did some studying and figured out how to de-ess on it. It's a beutiful unit maybe has 50 hours on it that's all.

I thought that your unit could be wrong because of your initial description:

Originally Posted by pzhuravel

...the tone that comes out those sovtek tubes makes my earwax boil!

If the pre is decent and what you want is a warmer sound you have at least two choices: to change the tubes or adjust the input and output gain (and the compressor) of the unit properly as suggested by phatbeatstudio. In any case in my opinion the 737's main virtue is not an extreme presence.

[pzhuravel]

Thank for your reply steely. What I meant with all of that is when i record it sounds fine until I start blowing the sound up with compression to get it loud enough.. Then funky frequencies creep up. And this happens no only to vocals, but guitars and Keyes as well. It has this unpleasant resonance that is manageable with eq's but I don't like using them, and if I compress with avon it has pretty significant noise floor that I don't particularly found of. So I figured it might be the tubes but I may be wrong after I started this post I made additional shoot outs and learned that I was using the unit incorrectly. I'm going to do a baby face mod on it and see if I can correct those tones with a faster attack and a de-esser, if that does not work tubes would be my next guess..

[pzhuravel]

Also do you think that a certain kind of tubes will give me that in your face presence or should I be looking at a whole different unit for that?

[SteelyDani]

Originally Posted by pzhuravel

Also do you think that a certain kind of tubes will give me that in your face presence or should I be looking at a whole different unit for that?

To get that in your face presence (Norah Jones) is not just a matter of equipment. Effectively the 737 compressor is rather slow and the Baby face modification could help. Obviously using a second compressor (1176) in series would make things easier.

In any case I still think you can achieve excellent vocals with the 737 in its original conditions. There are countless recordings to prove it. I suggest you try various settings before you spend more money(sorry I had forgotten that we are in GS).

I do not think different tubes will dramatically improve presence.

What I do not really understand are the resonances of your unit when using the compressor. I had never had that problem with my 737. Perhaps these resonances are already in the source (room, microphone ..)?

[Saxon-of-a-son]

Originally Posted by pzhuravel

Saxon how long do they last?

I was told by the dealer--a reputable guy who is mentioned in this forum--that they go at least 10,000 hours, more than twice that of Sovtek tubes.

[pzhuravel]

Steely ill play with it some more. I'm a digital guy and do not have much experience with hardware. I dislike spending money if I don't have to and your comments put my
Mind at ease so thank uou

[Ernest Buckley]

Originally Posted by pzhuravel

Also do you think that a certain kind of tubes will give me that in your face presence or should I be looking at a whole different unit for that?

I`ve been using the factory tubes for 12 years now and two 737s. I don`t think you need any other tubes... The most powerful aspect of the 737 is the EQ, try throwing it on the signal after the compression. Lots of users don`t know the power of the 737, often citing it as "dull". They give up on it too easily.

Some tips...
Drive the input, back off the output for a warmer tone and some "character".

Lay off the input, push the output for a cleaner tone.

EQ after compression to get more of that "in your face" sound.

EB

[pzhuravel]

Thank you Ernest .. I scrapped that idea already.. I figured if someone is smart enough to make this unit the souls use the tubes that wotlrk