New tubes and Biasing my DRRI

I bought a DRRI about 6 months ago. I decided at the time to not change the tubes and play it for a while. I have been on this forum for about the same amount of time and I remember posting when I bought the DRRI. I recall a lot of replies to my post saying to change the tubes and it will make a world of difference. I now would like to change the tubes. Could you answer my questions please?

1) What brand of tube should I get?
2) Where should I get them?
3) Do I need to replace all of the tubes?
4) Can I bias the amp myself? I am handy, but have never done this before and I am totally unfamiliar with the procedure.

The easiest way to rebias your amp is to get something like the Weber Bias Rite. It's a meter which measures plate voltage and current draw for each power tube (you toggle back and forth between the two readings). The power tubes plug into sockets which are attached to the meter and the sockets (with the tubes in them) are plugged into the amp. Then, it's simply a matter of dialing in the proper current draw (in mA) relative to the plate voltage (in DC volts).

While it sounds easy enough, you'll probably have to take the chassis out of the cabinet (it's hard to get a screwdriver up in there bias pot with the speaker in the way) and you'll be working around voltages which can be up to 500v...ouch!! It's not something that you'll want to do if you don't know what you're doing. It's probably better to get somebody to show you what to do the first time, and then decide if it's worth your while to invest in the proper tools and techniques to do it for yourself from that time forward.

ps - Unless your current tubes have burned out, they're probably fine. They just need proper biasing. The bias settings from the factory for those DRRIs tend to be a little cold (sterile sounding).

pps - Which tubes to get? Good question, but not an easy answer. I'd look into JJ, Sovtek, Svetlana, and Winged C. I've had good luck with all of those.

I have heard that when I get it biased to make sure that it is biased hotter....sounds like you are in the same camp. What do I tell the amp tech to bias it to?

If you go to the Eurotubes website, www.eurotubes.com , there is quite a bit of info about biasing and tubes. I'm getting ready to put new tubes into my drri, so I bought the Bias Probe and Multimeter from Eurotubes; for $35. Their site also has a video on how to bias a DRRI.
Choosing the tubes is the fun part, websites like www.thetubestore.com ,www.tubedepot.com and Eurotubes have plenty of tube reviews. If you do a search here and over at the Fender Forum, you'll find plenty of opinions as well.

If you're buying the bias probe from Eurotubes you might as well pick up a couple of JJ 6V6s. IMO they're the best you can get (and better than many NOS). As for the preamp tubes there's a wide variety of brands available.

thx- I'm on the fence as to JJ's or Tung Sols, for both power & preamp, I've read good things about Tung Sols too. I did pickup some JJ's for the BluesJr @ Eurotubes and they sound great. The JJ's lowprice is an added bonus....