Your Favorite EL34 or Equivelent Power Tube

My favourite that I've heard is definitely the Winged =C= EL34. Second would be the Gold Lion KT77. I have yet to hear the Mullard EL34, but that will be my next upgrade if I ever decide to do it.
 
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I picked up a tube pull from an old Dynaco amp at a yard sale. After trying different tubes in my Denise Had KT66 SE amp I found I like the EL34 Mullards the best. Those old tubes do sound sweet.

BillWojo
 
SED Winged C always pleases me.

Took a chance on a quad of thetubestore.com's 'preferred series' el34 and like them a lot also.
 
In using the new Tung-Sol EL34B in my MP301 and like them quite a bit. Very open sounding. Nice bass, nice treble, nice mids.
 
JJ EL34s seem not to last long- at least if you use them close to their max specs (like in a guitar amp). That's what I've seen and heard from a number of local guitar amp techs...

Not that they don't sound OK (they seem to sound fine)- they just wear out very quickly, compared to others.

Regards,
Gordon.
 
It's been a long time but I remember really liking the older Svetlana EL34s, circa 1997.

Otherwise I currently enjoy my Gold Lion KT88s in my Latino ST-70. Kinda makes it hard to go back to the traditional EL34 types after using those tubes.
 
It's been a long time but I remember really liking the older Svetlana EL34s, circa 1997.

Otherwise I currently enjoy my Gold Lion KT88s in my Latino ST-70. Kinda makes it hard to go back to the traditional EL34 types after using those tubes.

Those around 2000 were also my intro into new EL34. Svetlana, which then became known as the Winged C since they got careless with their US trademarking left me quite disappointed in xf2 Mullards.
cheers,
Douglas
 
I have a quad of low hour used JJ EL34's that I got for a song a while ago. I should plug them in and see what they even sound like. I got them so cheap that it was worth it to own for testing / sacrificial tubes.
 
Cheap Chinese EL34’s. Some of the guitar forums had good things to say about them so I figured I’d try them. They are much better made than the older Chinese EL34’s which I would never use. So far they’ve outlasted two pair of EH’s and they sound good. my amp runs them on the gentle side so I don’t know how they would hold up at higher plate voltages.
 
Cheap Chinese EL34’s. Some of the guitar forums had good things to say about them so I figured I’d try them. They are much better made than the older Chinese EL34’s which I would never use. So far they’ve outlasted two pair of EH’s and they sound good. my amp runs them on the gentle side so I don’t know how they would hold up at higher plate voltages.

I put some Shuguang EL34s in a Dyna ST70 that I refurbed a while back- and they certainly worked fine. Sounded good, too.

Since they were the first pair of those I used- just to be safe, I biased them about 10% low (45ma per tube, or 1.4v on the biaset tap). The amp wasn't going to be used at high volume levels, so why not make things last longer...

That said- I've seen some disappointing results with Shuguang-made KT88s, just starting recently (like within the last year and a half). Lots of variability, more DOA than before- and this from a supplier who very carefully grades and rejects bad tubes. They got to where they don't even use the Shuguangs any more, now, in fact. Hopefully, that's a problem isolated to the KT88s, and doesn't reflect a global problem at Shuguang... but it might be worth checking out before getting more of these right now.

Regards,
Gordon.
 
Best sounding one's I've used are the PSVane grey bottles. New production & hardly cheap when you require 8 of them.

2nd would be the old winged C. 3rd place would be the new production kt77 gold lions. 4th place are the old sovteks not winged C. Big dropoff to the next crop of eh6ca7/regular eh el34/jj's/regular shuguangs and sino/and so on.

Far more reliability problems with new production tubes and it's not even close in that comparison.
 
It's a shame they don't make the Winged C's anymore, the prices are starting to creep up to NOS levels. (since they are, I suppose). I think they sound better then RFT/Seimens, even if probably not as reliable (I've had two go bad within a couple of months of use).

I've never tried the Gold Lion KT77, but I think the JJ KT77 has got to be the best value in the EL34 game. I paid $85 shipped for a matched quad, which is 1/3 the cost of of Winged C's. People say they have reliability issues (and some also say have gotten better), but at that price I'll forgive them.

My favorite at the moment is the GE fatbody 6CA7. I'd love to try to Psvane Phillips clones.
 
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