Tube Noobie - How do you tell you're maxed?

What do you mean maxing it out?

 

When the knobs don't go any further to the right


Seriously, though, you can't really damage this amp with any settings, including everything on 10. You may damage cabs however, no guarantees there

 

1st, clipping won't inherently damage your speakers.

Next, tube amps distort in a completely different way from SS amps. SS amps stay cleaan up until the point where they start to clip and then they sound horrible due to the hard clipping that then takes place. Tubes distort gradually as you increase the volume and begin this at lower levels. This disortion is often very subtle ad pleasing to the ear so that you may not notice it until THD reaches a significant level. The amps are made to deal with this.

In a nut shell: turn all the nobs to 10 if you like. You may shorten the life of the tubes, but that should be about it.

Edit: Oh yeah, and don't forget to enjoy some grindy, overdriven tube tone.

 

As I mentioned, the amp will In no way be damaged by overdriving it. There is no amount of "wattage overload" that could damage the amp. That's why we like tube amps, you can overdrive the hell out of them. And no more clip lights to worry you when you should be rocking out!

Of course you can still damage your cab, and this is where you need to use your ears, like you said.

 

thats a great bass head when they're growling they sound wonderful i've never needed to turn them up all the way though i have used them at3/4 all night long

 

congrats, i just got an early 70's V4B myself! Just so you know, as I've found out myself and have been told on here, I get about maximum volume when the volume's at 1oclock, and from there the distortion just gets more saturated.

 

I'm using an Ampeg B25B!

 

Yup, I have a '72 V4-B and I get all the volume (and a good bit of dirt) around 12 o'clock on the gain knob. Everything above that is just more dirt really.

Here's a tip for more dirt at (slightly) lower volumes:
crank the EQ knobs to 10! Cut back the bass a bit if you need to to avoid blowing drivers in smaller cabs.

 

My early-70's V4 volume level maxes out at an 11 o'clock volume knob position and any higher simply produces more very cool sounding tube saturation. Mine was this way when I got it and also after being thoroughly serviced including full recapping, brand new vintage Philips 7027 power tubes and a very experienced V4/V4B tech carefully selecting preamp/driver tubes for the absolute most clean headroom.

The Cab(s) you choose to use will make a huge difference in whether a V4/V4B will end up being loud enough for your particular band or not.