Dave....what EL34's are reliable today? JJ's still junk?

I had bought a quad of Ruby EL34BSTRs from Doug at Doug's Tubes. Had them in my Splawn Nitro and they've sounded great.
 
Well there are no more Chinese power tubes.. JJ is extremely unreliable.. So that leaves...

Eh el34-- Vey reliable small bottle el34 sound
Mullard El34-- Sounds good and glassy on top a bit dipped in mids
Tung sol el34-- more of a sound cross between a 6l6 and el34.
Svetlana el34-- not sure how to describe. would not be my first pick
EH 6ca7-- very good sounding cool tube
 
RACKSYSTEMS said:
Well there are no more Chinese power tubes.. JJ is extremely unreliable.. So that leaves...

Eh el34-- Vey reliable small bottle el34 sound
Mullard El34-- Sounds good and glassy on top a bit dipped in mids
Tung sol el34-- more of a sound cross between a 6l6 and el34.
Svetlana el34-- not sure how to describe. would not be my first pick
EH 6ca7-- very good sounding cool tube
Click to expand...
Thanks, Dave. ...I'm curious if we'll see any Chinese power tubes in the near future.
 
I’ve been running JJ KT77’s at 30w idle each cathode bias no sweat for over two years. I get the lowest current draw tubes (21 “bias point”) from Tube Depot and they don’t die, just wear out. Last set started at 12,000mu and was at 8,000mu when I replaced them. Low plate ( AND screen! ) current draw specimens are the toughest.
Also cool are the old soviet 6P3S-E, pre Sovtek black print / new production. They work in EL34 circuits and sound killer. I believe that is what was in the Soldano SLO’s that got “the tone,” much like the beloved block letter 5150’s that came with real Sylvanias. I can’t stand modern Sovtek knock offs of that tube. The rebrands with silver letters are legit though.

Correct me if I’m wrong!
 
I have had a 25% failure rate on the Ruby’s right out of the box.

I still have a load of JJEL34/E34L’s.

Never cared for the EH models as I had immediate failures with those as well.

It appears when averaged by all posted it is a crap shoot but D. Friedman deals in obscene quantities so his word is good for me in the future.

Of greater concern are transformers IMO.

David Hopkins.
 
I find the JJ KT77's very reliable, and pretty awesome, actually. Used them for years, zero issues.

However, the EH 6CA7's have been on my want to try list.
 
RACKSYSTEMS said:
Well there are no more Chinese power tubes.. JJ is extremely unreliable.. So that leaves...

Eh el34-- Vey reliable small bottle el34 sound
Mullard El34-- Sounds good and glassy on top a bit dipped in mids
Tung sol el34-- more of a sound cross between a 6l6 and el34.
Svetlana el34-- not sure how to describe. would not be my first pick
EH 6ca7-- very good sounding cool tube
Click to expand...
Thanks for that. Much appreciated info and your Tone Talk pod cast. Always look forward to those.

I'm recently scratching TAD EL34's from my last. Bad luck for me on those.
 
My BE-100 originally (2015) came with TAD EL34B-STR and for a while sounded amazing, the complexity was full very throaty sounding power tubes but over all the TAD's kept failing including two brand new set's and while Dave had my BE-100 out at his shop (performing a number of mods)
Dave suggested Electro-Harmonix EL34's and so far over 5yrs they have sounded wonderful in recording sessions and live.....

I've tried:
JJ E34L wide sounding, full and articulative.
JJ EL34 standard, basic sounding not bad.
SED =C=, actually kind of bland, no character.
EH EL34, rich full sounding, extremely reliable & favorite.
TAD EL34B-STR generally great sounding, poor reliability.

Over all Dave's had the best recommendation & knowledge.....
 
MantraSky said:
My BE-100 originally (2015) came with TAD EL34B-STR and for a while sounded amazing, the complexity was full very throaty sounding power tubes but over all the TAD's kept failing including two brand new set's and while Dave had my BE-100 out at his shop (performing a number of mods)
Dave suggested Electro-Harmonix EL34's and so far over 5yrs they have sounded wonderful in recording sessions and live.....

I've tried:
JJ E34L wide sounding, full and articulative.
JJ EL34 standard, basic sounding not bad.
SED =C=, actually kind of bland, no character.
EH EL34, rich full sounding, extremely reliable & favorite.
TAD EL34B-STR generally great sounding, poor reliability.

Over all Dave's had the best recommendation & knowledge.....
Click to expand...
Thank you for all that.

No more TAD EL34B-STR's for me. My last 2 sets lived short lives. Even though they were biased on the lower end of their operating range. I could be wrong on this, but I understand they come from the Shuguang factory where production of tubes has been shuttered.

I find buying tubes this past year has been a crap shoot. Just the way it is sometimes. I can only imagine what a PIA it is for Friedman.

I've got an old set of Mesa branded STR's in my SB50 at the moment. We'll see how they hold up.

I've got a set of JJ's coming from AES. We'll see how that gamble works out.

I'm left with doing my own testing (if you can call it that) letting these things burn a while in the amps I use the most. Especially the Wizards where they'll get harsh treatment. If they live in those a while, then they should live in my others as well.

I'm going to start pulling them after a good hard 20 or so hours, and hang onto them as spares.

Oh well.....I suppose we're lucky to even be able to buy something as ancient as vacuum tubes anymore.

When you factor in the differences in peoples hearing, and the inconsistency in vacuum tube mfr's,...........getting tubes I can be relatively satisfied with long to moderate term seems impossible lately for me.

I'll have to lower my standards.
 
Tungsol EL34B's are great sounding, and pretty rugged. I really dig the JJ KT77's too. I've not had an issue with them in 10 years, in NUMEROUS amps, and my tube of choice for some nice chunk, and aggressive tones. Great harmonics too. I've had them in 3 Friedmans, a Helios 50, Quick Rod, Competition, Engl Artist Edition, and Retro, JSX's, XXX's, they always delivered for me.
 
tlp1234 said:
Thank you for all that.

No more TAD EL34B-STR's for me. My last 2 sets lived short lives. Even though they were biased on the lower end of their operating range. I could be wrong on this, but I understand they come from the Shuguang factory where production of tubes has been shuttered.

I find buying tubes this past year has been a crap shoot. Just the way it is sometimes. I can only imagine what a PIA it is for Friedman.

I've got an old set of Mesa branded STR's in my SB50 at the moment. We'll see how they hold up.

I've got a set of JJ's coming from AES. We'll see how that gamble works out.

I'm left with doing my own testing (if you can call it that) letting these things burn a while in the amps I use the most. Especially the Wizards where they'll get harsh treatment. If they live in those a while, then they should live in my others as well.

I'm going to start pulling them after a good hard 20 or so hours, and hang onto them as spares.

Oh well.....I suppose we're lucky to even be able to buy something as ancient as vacuum tubes anymore.

When you factor in the differences in peoples hearing, and the inconsistency in vacuum tube mfr's,...........getting tubes I can be relatively satisfied with long to moderate term seems impossible lately for me.

I'll have to lower my standards.
Click to expand...
472VDC on the plates/37.5mA biased. The old spare set of Mesa branded tubes held up fine for a total of 20hrs. No problems. I've stowed them away as spares.

The new set of JJ's from Antique Electronics Supply are also holding up nicely under the same. I think I'll slowly build up my own spare stock and just run them through my own amps over several hours as the test. The stuff coming out of the Reflektor and Slovakian (JJ) factories is cheap enough. No more chinese crap though for now.

Probably dumb luck........but I've bought numerous sets of tubes from AES, and never a problem.

I'm certain other people hear the differences in these different sourced tubes, but I can't unless they are on the verge of some type of failure. At 63, I'm certain some of that is gradual hearing degradation, and self awareness of confirmation bias.

When one considers what goes into vacuum tube manufacturing, I'm still amazed these days that the few places in the world that make them still do. The audiophile, guitar amp, and amateur radio RF amp market is such a small niche market, hell I guess we're lucky we can still buy them at all. There just can't be that much money in it. I suppose the Russians and chinese still use tubes for other things. I mean......the valve guitar amp market is so small, I can't see any way in hell that by itself could support the tube manufacturing effort financially.

Also had great stuff from Mike Kropotkin/KCA tubes. Got a set of 6p14p/6n14n (EL84 type) coming for my Matchless Lightning.

Don't get me wrong......I love all my tube amps. I've got a shitload of them, and hardly any room for anymore. But the rash of tube failures I've had lately makes me want to say screw it and go solid state.

But really.....all things considered, I have very little to bitch about.

I can't imagine what a pain in the ass scourges of bad tube batches can be for someone like Dave Friedman/Boutique Amp Distribution.

We just don't appreciate how good we have it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top