Looking for help in figuring how many 12ax7 stages is needed to fully drive a single ended amp using any of these power tubes. I believe the EL34 data sheet says that for SE use, the grid no. 1 driving voltage needs to be 8.7 Vrms. On the 6l6-gc it says for cathode biased "peak AF grid no. 1 voltage = 12.7 volts"
Can a typical Fender-ish simple preamp w/ a single 12ax7 tube being - first stage > tone stack > second stage be enough to achieve this objective? Or if there was no tone stack, would that be enough to do it?