• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Question about Groove Tubes EL34s...

Jon S

Jon S

Super Member
I was lucky enough to score five Groove Tubes EL34-M tubes for $78 on eBay. I gotta say that these tubes sound fantastic. Brent Jesse said that these tubes were the best new production EL34s out there with sound closely matching the famed Mullard EL34 XF2 tubes.

Sadly, Groove Tubes seems to have stopped selling a few years ago. My question is this, Groove Tubes had a bunch of EL34 variations, GT-EL34, EL34-LS, EL34-S, EL34-R, EL34-GE and EL34-C tubes. Does anyone out there know what this various tubes sound like or what they were designed for?
 
Register to hide this ad
Jon S said:
I was lucky enough to score five Groove Tubes EL34-M tubes for $78 on eBay. I gotta say that these tubes sound fantastic. Brent Jesse said that these tubes were the best new production EL34s out there with sound closely matching the famed Mullard EL34 XF2 tubes.

Sadly, Groove Tubes seems to have stopped selling a few years ago. My question is this, Groove Tubes had a bunch of EL34 variations, GT-EL34, EL34-LS, EL34-S, EL34-R, EL34-GE and EL34-C tubes. Does anyone out there know what this various tubes sound like or what they were designed for?
Click to expand...
groove tubes is a rebrand/resell company. gotta find out the identity of thebtubes theyve written their name on.

i have a few geoove tubes-branded 12BH7. in the same batch i got a few different manufacutres. that may be the case with those EL84. if u can identify the tube u like u can buy a bunch.
 
Got a reply from Brent Jessee (the italicized quotes in parenthesis were inserted by me):
The GT-EL34 was made in China (Shuguang?). The LS and S versions were made in the Slovak Republic (JJ Vacuum Tubes). The GE was a reissue of the USA GE fat boy type, I think made in China. The EL34R was made in Russia (by Saratov in Russia) and the EL34C was another variation made in China (Shuguang?). The Mullard reissue EL34M was made in China also (Shuguang?). The only ones I have heard are the EL34-M Mullard reissues and they did sound much like the old British tubes.
 
cool. i reckon youre there. if u have the tube and a good idea of where it came from you can probably get some more of the same.
 
Bummer... I thought I just scored a quad of NOS EL34-Ms online. Just got the tubes and one pair was EL34-M but it was labeled a score of 1 which is an undesireable rank which means it outputs lower power than a higher number. The second pair was EL34-R (Russian Saratov made) tubes. I am going to return them because they are nowhere as good as the EL34-M tubes and they sell for a lot less than $100/pair.
 
I also found out that Groove Tubes supplied the components for the tubes to Shuguang who assembled the tubes. That's why Shuguang can no longer manufacture the tubes once the parts source dried up when GT when belly up in 2008. The founder, Aspen Pittman died in 2019 at the age of 70.
 
Jon S said:
I also found out that Groove Tubes supplied the components for the tubes to Shuguang who assembled the tubes. That's why Shuguang can no longer manufacture the tubes once the parts source dried up when GT when belly up in 2008. The founder, Aspen Pittman died in 2019 at the age of 70.
Click to expand...
hmn...as far as tubes GT had no manufacturing...any idea what supply they bought and from where it came?

i had no idea they went belly up. i remember fender bought GT.
 
Fender bought out GT and got rid of most of the staff with some merging with Fender. GT was then shut down. I don't know the reasoning for that.
 
Jon S said:
Fender bought out GT and got rid of most of the staff with some merging with Fender. GT was then shut down. I don't know the reasoning for that.
Click to expand...
To kill some of the competition? Sometimes companies are bought out just for certain records they may have.
Pharmacies do this just to obtain customer records from the pharmacy company they bought out. That info minus personal info can then be used and even sold to pharmaceutical companies for stats like types and amount of certain drugs sold in given area's along with the list of costomer ailments, etc. Those records are worth big bucks.
 
Jon S said:
I also found out that Groove Tubes supplied the components for the tubes to Shuguang who assembled the tubes. That's why Shuguang can no longer manufacture the tubes once the parts source dried up when GT when belly up in 2008. The founder, Aspen Pittman died in 2019 at the age of 70.
Click to expand...
In a car wreck, his wife as well died, as I was informed by his friend and neighbor.
 
Jon S said:
I was lucky enough to score five Groove Tubes EL34-M tubes for $78 on eBay. I gotta say that these tubes sound fantastic. Brent Jesse said that these tubes were the best new production EL34s out there with sound closely matching the famed Mullard EL34 XF2 tubes.

Sadly, Groove Tubes seems to have stopped selling a few years ago. My question is this, Groove Tubes had a bunch of EL34 variations, GT-EL34, EL34-LS, EL34-S, EL34-R, EL34-GE and EL34-C tubes. Does anyone out there know what this various tubes sound like or what they were designed for?
Click to expand...
Pics of it please.
 
ceylon said:
there were some on epay recently
Click to expand...
I know there's an EL34M made my Tesla and it says Marshall on it. Looking at the ebay groove tubes el34m now and that looks Chinese.
ceylon said:
thats the one
Click to expand...
From what I can recall that was a short time run by groove tubes from Shuguang. I think they're like a lot of those copies they've commissioned where they were hit or miss and for how long.
 
CDawg said:
CDawg said:
From what I can recall that was a short time run by groove tubes from Shuguang. I think they're like a lot of those copies they've commissioned where they were hit or miss and for how long.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
yep, thats the one were talkin about, my friend.

@everybody heres the other thread in case no one posted it already:

Gt el34m ?

Just curious if anyone here has/is running the Groove Tubes EL34M tube? Groove Tubes (since bought out by Fender) was basically a re-brander, but did develop a few of their own tubes, one of which is the EL34M. It was designed as a very close replica of the Mullard XF2, and manufactured in...
audiokarma.org
 
ceylon said:
hmn...as far as tubes GT had no manufacturing...any idea what supply they bought and from where it came?

i had no idea they went belly up. i remember fender bought GT.
Click to expand...
I seem to recall (but could be wrong) that at one time Groove Tubes was going to get into tube manufacturing themselves and may have purchased the remnants of the old GE plant in Kentucky (I think). Yes, my post is full of disclaimers as to veracity, but that's what I recall. So if that's the case, they may have had either old GE parts or may have even started making some of the internal components again but never got the full manufacturing of complete tubes off the ground, hence having some stuff to send to China for completion.
 
JonL said:
I seem to recall (but could be wrong) that at one time Groove Tubes was going to get into tube manufacturing themselves and may have purchased the remnants of the old GE plant in Kentucky (I think). Yes, my post is full of disclaimers as to veracity, but that's what I recall. So if that's the case, they may have had either old GE parts or may have even started making some of the internal components again but never got the full manufacturing of complete tubes off the ground, hence having some stuff to send to China for completion.
Click to expand...
hmn. the more this thread goes the more interesting it gets.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom