The ESP Guitar Company

All you can do is just try it and see. I can pretty much guarantee that you will need an overdrive of some sort. If it is anything at all like a JCM800 then it won't do a whole lot more than a hot ac/dc style crunch by itself.

JCM600 is good for those AC/DC style tones, as mentioned before, it may be able to do Kill Em' All tones at a push, but id say a good TS9, OD808, GT-OD or even a SD-1 would be needed for getting into classic Metallic tones. Forget getting CoB tones from it, youll need more saturation whitch it wont do.

Id say go with EHX 12AX7s in the pre amp, as they are reputidly the highest gain pre amp tubes, altho id say maybes go with this for it:

V1: EHX 12AX7
V2: EHX 12AX7
V3: EHX 12AX7
V4: JJ or Ruby Tubes 12AX7

As for poweramp tubes id say go with either Groove Tubes, Ruby Tubes or maybes a JJ for the power amp.

Im a person that likes EL84s in a power amp.

What is the difference (sound wise) between EL34's and EL84's? what about 6L6's?

EL84s sound more compressed and more vintage, commonly used in class A amps like the Vox AC30s, but can be used in lower end class A/B amps, same type of to basic tone, but less compressed, more like a EL34.

EL34s are what Marshalls most commonly use, more of a Brittish rock tone.

6L6s are what Mesa commonly use, more of an American tone.

Altho dont be foled by tubes, some EL34 amps sound like 6L6s and vice versa.

would I need to have work done on the amp to use different tubes than EL34's? How would 6L6's sound in a marshall?

Yes you would, any time you change tubes you may need to get it biased. Thats why i do look for bias free amps, ones where you can just slip tubes in and out without needing to get it biased.

In fact you could use that amp to play metal.... but pushing up the volume.... to keep the power section hot like hell, jajaja

If you feel that you need more gain so put a stom box in front of the amp.... to keep the "tonal character" of the tubes use something like the Vox Big Ben Overdrive... using this pedal mixed with the overdrive channel of that amp you must have enough gain to play ALL that you want. If after that, you still need more Gain, buy an After burner system for your EMGs.... an then you're gonna need a helmet to play guitar! LOL!

Remember... the gain that you hear in an Album, is the adds of a lot of guitar layers... so the guitars were recorded with just a littel bit of gain... so, in that way, you can handling better the tone a calrity of the guitars.... if you record with a lot of gain you guitar could be just a lot of noise.

Cheers!

The JCM 600 was the second biggest POS next to the JTM30/60 series that Marshall turned out stay away from it not even amp techs will touch it.

^Really? What proof do you have of this?

I have had a jcm600 for a few yrs now and I love it .You can go from a nice clean up to a hi gain metallica sound with out any od/ds pedals, its all in the EQ. Get a good EQ pedal and insert it in the series fx loop.

I went ahead and got it, and I am glad I did. Without any sort of boost, it can get a great megadeth- RTL metallica tones. With an SD-1 in front of it, you can get anything from slayer to Zakk- I Love it, and I have not had any problems with it.

The ToneFactor CopperHead pairs nicely with that amp.

I would be careful about buying an JCM600. Test it first!
I was myself considering buying one once, but I was recommended strongly against it by a friend and it would have been a long drive to test it.... so I didn't go for it.

I believe that like the jcm 900 series they used diode clipping to achieve more distortion.. but I may be quite wrong about it. I've heard them live & they sounded fine. as for their reliability.. no answer as I've never owned it before.

good luck