Reliable EL34 tubes?

[cardinal]

Boring question, but is there a consensus on the most reliable EL34 tube? I haven’t needed to buy tubes in years. I’d prefer new and not NOS.

These will be run hard in a Marshall 1959, so I’m looking for something that can take that use and probably will get a spare set on hand.

 

[RACKSYSTEMS]

Eh has worked for us in our large production. Seem to be very reliable.. jj tubes are out and the Chinese el34s are fragile. Tungsol also seem to be a good choice but not as classic el34 sounding. The EH tubes sound more like old Siemens

 

[sleewell2]

i have a matched set of winged Cs for sale if you are interested. basically brand new.

 

[FourT6and2]

Eh has worked for us in our large production. Seem to be very reliable.. jj tubes are out and the Chinese el34s are fragile. Tungsol also seem to be a good choice but not as classic el34 sounding. The EH tubes sound more like old Siemens

Yeah the EH EL34 looks to me to be a clone of the RFT/Siemens. Side by side they look identical in construction at least.

 

[cardinal]

Awesome, that’s guys. It has EH in there now and sounds good to me, so it’s easy enough to stick with them.

 

[psychodave]

Eh has worked for us in our large production. Seem to be very reliable.. jj tubes are out and the Chinese el34s are fragile. Tungsol also seem to be a good choice but not as classic el34 sounding. The EH tubes sound more like old Siemens

Thanks for your insight.

Do you like the EH 6CA7’s ?

 

[Snave]

Eh has worked for us in our large production. Seem to be very reliable.. jj tubes are out and the Chinese el34s are fragile. Tungsol also seem to be a good choice but not as classic el34 sounding. The EH tubes sound more like old Siemens

Dave's right. JJ and Ruby are simply not reliable currently. The fact that Mesa Boogie chose to use Electro Harmonix as their current production EL34 says a lot. Tonally, they're chubbier in the bass with some grit in the high end.

 

[Ventura]

TAD and these guys come with a kickass no bullshit warranty: https://www.thetubestore.com/preferred-series-el34

Boom, done.

 

[skullfxr]

I have been running JJE34L's in a lot of amps and I love them. I like them better than the traditional EL34's. As far as durability goes if recent I cannot confirm, as i bought 16 matched ones a few years back. Haven't lost one yet. They have a little more solid bottom end than a JJEL34. I have a few JJEL34 without issue.

Tung-Sol make my favorite new production EL34.

 

[FourT6and2]

I've never had a problem with JJs either. But small sample size. I did have an amp show up recently with JJ EL34s and the tubes were severely mismatched. But I blame the amp manufacturer for that, not JJ. The only power tube I've ever had actually go bad and die was a new production Tung Sol reissue.

 

[JMP2203]

Eh has worked for us in our large production. Seem to be very reliable.. jj tubes are out and the Chinese el34s are fragile. Tungsol also seem to be a good choice but not as classic el34 sounding. The EH tubes sound more like old Siemens

Thanks for your insight.

Do you like the EH 6CA7’s ?

bump for this, i like 6L6EH or Sovtek 6L6wxt+

 

[Snave]

I put a quad of EH 6CA7s in a Bogner Uberschall Rev 2 last year (the JJ EL34Ls it had were doing the standard JJ popping/white noise thing). After rebiasing, the new set were comparatively leaner in the lows and smoother in the highs. They've got less character than EH EL34s.

 

[Wizard of Ozz]

The ones you test, burn in, bias, and demo in the specific amp in question yourself.

Any brand, type, date of manufacture vacuum tube can fail at any time. To assume that any brand will be bullet proof is foolish. Learn how to test, install, and bias them yourself.

Do light bulbs go bad randomly? So do power tubes.

 

[FourT6and2]

The ones you test, burn in, bias, and demo in the specific amp in question yourself.

Any brand, type, date of manufacture vacuum tube can fail at any time. To assume that any brand will be bullet proof is foolish. Learn how to test, install, and bias them yourself.

Do light bulbs go bad randomly? So do power tubes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light