Siemens EL34s

[Digital Jams]

So for those who have chimed in with "Siemans" do you have?

 

[glpg80]

My experience wirth the German made is that they sound excellent in a low to medium gain head. I would not run these at much over 450 plate volts. They fall apart under power and higher gain. You have to be carefull. I believe they are only rated to 450 pv. The old Tesla E34L's are fantastic for guitar and can take the higher PV.

fixed

He's talkin Tesla's not JJ's smarty. Really though the old 60's, 70's, and some of the 80's Telsa EL34's are tough as nails in my experience, they also sound really really really great, one of my favorites. "Siemens" which are RFT E. Germany are actually pretty stout too, I think they tend to die out early in amps that are slightly unstable in terms of parasitic oscillations more so than just high B+. I think a lot of old Marshalls ate them on account of not so perfect lead dress and then the 490 ish volts just helped accelerate their death.

im not talking about shitty JJ's - im talking re-named teslas, unless you were saying the E34L's are pretty bad tone wise?

groove tubes tesla E34LS - rated at 500V on the plates last i remember. look up the datasheet - tesla E34L (E34LS) is a real tube unless you are saying they are JJ which i dont think is true at all

 

[duesentrieb]

Pics now converted - sorry . . .

 

[duesentrieb]

Yugo-Siemens

 

[smdb]

So for those who have chimed in with "Siemans" do you have?

I have 4 or 5 quads...

me too!

 

[Loudness250]

I ran these "dimple top" rft el34's in my Marshall jtm/45 Hendrix amp. Plate Voltage of 535V. They held up good, never blinked but that's just my experience and I figured I would ad this. Killer sounding tubes, I'm going to buy some more for my Randall RM100 I know a store that has some mesa branded ones, Just waiting till I have the money.

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

My experience wirth the German made is that they sound excellent in a low to medium gain head. I would not run these at much over 450 plate volts. They fall apart under power and higher gain. You have to be carefull. I believe they are only rated to 450 pv. The old Tesla E34L's are fantastic for guitar and can take the higher PV.

fixed

He's talkin Tesla's not JJ's smarty. Really though the old 60's, 70's, and some of the 80's Telsa EL34's are tough as nails in my experience, they also sound really really really great, one of my favorites. "Siemens" which are RFT E. Germany are actually pretty stout too, I think they tend to die out early in amps that are slightly unstable in terms of parasitic oscillations more so than just high B+. I think a lot of old Marshalls ate them on account of not so perfect lead dress and then the 490 ish volts just helped accelerate their death.

im not talking about shitty JJ's - im talking re-named teslas, unless you were saying the E34L's are pretty bad tone wise?

groove tubes tesla E34LS - rated at 500V on the plates last i remember. look up the datasheet - tesla E34L (E34LS) is a real tube unless you are saying they are JJ which i dont think is true at all

Just to be clear there is no Tesla anymore, the Groove Tubes E34LS is made by JJ, I think I read somewhere maybe even from Bob at Eurotubes that they are made on different tooling than the standard JJ E34L. The plate structure is certainly a little different but truth can be stranger than fiction in the tube industry. Some of the early GT E34L may have been made by Tesla, I'm not sure when they started selling them. The E34L variant of the EL34 was originally introduced by Tesla much later on in the company's history when the quality wasn't quite what it used to be. I'm not saying they're all junk, just saying I'd put a good set of older Tesla EL34's up against em any day, damn the data sheets. FWIW most of JJ's data sheets all look like cut and paste jobs of old Phillips data sheets in terms of the actual data. Pretty much any good quality EL34 can take mondo voltage on the plates, it's the screens that get killed at higher voltage. Most old EL34 tubes were rated for a maximum of 800v on the plates. Tesla has been gone since before JJ was in business, JJ bought up much of the Tesla gear and started making tubes with it. There was another offshoot of Tesla that may have even been operating under the Tesla name, I can't quite remember but they were primarily doing big transmitting tubes and stuff. I think they had a short lived KT88, you can find the info if you google it. Anyway, hope that clears it up.

 

[glip22]

My experience wirth the German made is that they sound excellent in a low to medium gain head. I would not run these at much over 450 plate volts. They fall apart under power and higher gain. You have to be carefull. I believe they are only rated to 450 pv. The old Tesla E34L's are fantastic for guitar and can take the higher PV.

fixed

He's talkin Tesla's not JJ's smarty. Really though the old 60's, 70's, and some of the 80's Telsa EL34's are tough as nails in my experience, they also sound really really really great, one of my favorites. "Siemens" which are RFT E. Germany are actually pretty stout too, I think they tend to die out early in amps that are slightly unstable in terms of parasitic oscillations more so than just high B+. I think a lot of old Marshalls ate them on account of not so perfect lead dress and then the 490 ish volts just helped accelerate their death.

im not talking about shitty JJ's - im talking re-named teslas, unless you were saying the E34L's are pretty bad tone wise?

groove tubes tesla E34LS - rated at 500V on the plates last i remember. look up the datasheet - tesla E34L (E34LS) is a real tube unless you are saying they are JJ which i dont think is true at all

Just to be clear there is no Tesla anymore, the Groove Tubes E34LS is made by JJ, I think I read somewhere maybe even from Bob at Eurotubes that they are made on different tooling than the standard JJ E34L. The plate structure is certainly a little different but truth can be stranger than fiction in the tube industry. Some of the early GT E34L may have been made by Tesla, I'm not sure when they started selling them. The E34L variant of the EL34 was originally introduced by Tesla much later on in the company's history when the quality wasn't quite what it used to be. I'm not saying they're all junk, just saying I'd put a good set of older Tesla EL34's up against em any day, damn the data sheets. FWIW most of JJ's data sheets all look like cut and paste jobs of old Phillips data sheets in terms of the actual data. Pretty much any good quality EL34 can take mondo voltage on the plates, it's the screens that get killed at higher voltage. Most old EL34 tubes were rated for a maximum of 800v on the plates. Tesla has been gone since before JJ was in business, JJ bought up much of the Tesla gear and started making tubes with it. There was another offshoot of Tesla that may have even been operating under the Tesla name, I can't quite remember but they were primarily doing big transmitting tubes and stuff. I think they had a short lived KT88, you can find the info if you google it. Anyway, hope that clears it up.

Tesla and JJ sound nothing alike and are not the same tubes. Tesla was made in the old Rosnov and I believe Trinic factories. I think the offshoot you are refferring too was Teslovak. The old brown base Teslas are excellent tubes and have have won over XF2 Mullards in some tube shootouts. The Mullard XF2 dark brown bases are great tubes as well. I preferred the Tesla for guitar over the Dual halo getter Mullards, but the single getter XF2 is a great guitar tube. I also had about five quads of the Holland Amperex Double D getters which is one of the earliest EL34 made. The first was the metal base. Excellent as well. The RFT Siemens is one of the last "best deals" cost wise in NOS tubes. Here's a pic of the rarest quad I owned. It sold for 800 to the Asian market. The flashing patterns were even the same. XF2 Holland are very rare, especially in unused condition. Mullard I beleive owned or purchased Philips Holland and assigned the XF2 code to the following Mullard brown base and moved ahead with XF3-5 codes for the Amperex. Those EI Siemens EL34 do not sound so good.

 

[glpg80]

My experience wirth the German made is that they sound excellent in a low to medium gain head. I would not run these at much over 450 plate volts. They fall apart under power and higher gain. You have to be carefull. I believe they are only rated to 450 pv. The old Tesla E34L's are fantastic for guitar and can take the higher PV.

fixed

He's talkin Tesla's not JJ's smarty. Really though the old 60's, 70's, and some of the 80's Telsa EL34's are tough as nails in my experience, they also sound really really really great, one of my favorites. "Siemens" which are RFT E. Germany are actually pretty stout too, I think they tend to die out early in amps that are slightly unstable in terms of parasitic oscillations more so than just high B+. I think a lot of old Marshalls ate them on account of not so perfect lead dress and then the 490 ish volts just helped accelerate their death.

im not talking about shitty JJ's - im talking re-named teslas, unless you were saying the E34L's are pretty bad tone wise?

groove tubes tesla E34LS - rated at 500V on the plates last i remember. look up the datasheet - tesla E34L (E34LS) is a real tube unless you are saying they are JJ which i dont think is true at all

Just to be clear there is no Tesla anymore, the Groove Tubes E34LS is made by JJ, I think I read somewhere maybe even from Bob at Eurotubes that they are made on different tooling than the standard JJ E34L. The plate structure is certainly a little different but truth can be stranger than fiction in the tube industry. Some of the early GT E34L may have been made by Tesla, I'm not sure when they started selling them. The E34L variant of the EL34 was originally introduced by Tesla much later on in the company's history when the quality wasn't quite what it used to be. I'm not saying they're all junk, just saying I'd put a good set of older Tesla EL34's up against em any day, damn the data sheets. FWIW most of JJ's data sheets all look like cut and paste jobs of old Phillips data sheets in terms of the actual data. Pretty much any good quality EL34 can take mondo voltage on the plates, it's the screens that get killed at higher voltage. Most old EL34 tubes were rated for a maximum of 800v on the plates. Tesla has been gone since before JJ was in business, JJ bought up much of the Tesla gear and started making tubes with it. There was another offshoot of Tesla that may have even been operating under the Tesla name, I can't quite remember but they were primarily doing big transmitting tubes and stuff. I think they had a short lived KT88, you can find the info if you google it. Anyway, hope that clears it up.

Tesla and JJ sound nothing alike and are not the same tubes. Tesla was made in the old Rosnov and I believe Trinic factories. I think the offshoot you are refferring too was Teslovak. The old brown base Teslas are excellent tubes and have have won over XF2 Mullards in some tube shootouts. The Mullard XF2 dark brown bases are great tubes as well. I preferred the Tesla for guitar over the Dual halo getter Mullards, but the single getter XF2 is a great guitar tube. I also had about five quads of the Holland Amperex Double D getters which is one of the earliest EL34 made. The first was the metal base. Excellent as well. The RFT Siemens is one of the last "best deals" cost wise in NOS tubes. Here's a pic of the rarest quad I owned. It sold for 800 to the Asian market. The flashing patterns were even the same. XF2 Holland are very rare, especially in unused condition. Mullard I beleive owned or purchased Philips Holland and assigned the XF2 code to the following Mullard brown base and moved ahead with XF3-5 codes for the Amperex. Those EI Siemens EL34 do not sound so good.

i knew they were renamed by a company but when you mentioned JJ i thought surely not

learn something new every day. thanks to both of you!

i also knew GT once sold groove tube rated (pro-rated tubes at that) Tesla's at one point or another. i had no idea JJ was remaking them (possibly on different tooling than JJ as you mention which is an interesting fact)

thanks for the info Dan i did not mean to come off as a hard ass on the tube info after re-reading that reply. i was more into giving information about the E34LS signature rated at a higher B+ (800V max or 500V depending on the timestamp of the datasheet you read) vs. EL34's which everyone knows.