From all my 'sperimentin,' the JJ's have the true brit grit and musical top, the the chiner's have the balance and tung-sols are the most musical of the russian ones...
It was funny...I had my dad's rivera M60 over here, and it had sovtek el-34's and the chinese 9th gens in it ('92 vintage). I put some new E34L's (biased about 80%) in it...when I returned it, he couldn't stop playing it.
I see alot of amps shipping with SED EL34's, but with the JJ's being so killer, I don't see how anyone but the metal guys could roll with hi-end bite like that. I figure folks on the road with a little bit of coin could easily change them weekly. In my experience, it takes about an hour for them to warm up, but once they do, it's like *POOF* blessings from the toanz fairy!
I sent Dave a Marshall MKII 50wt for the KS mod, I shipped it with some Matched Ruby EL34-BHT power tubes. I like the Ruby EL34-STR that came in my VH4 and I had a quad of the upgraded BHT models laying around and wanted to see how they hold up with the HBE setting? Maybe Dave can give us his opinion when the amp is done about these type tubes with his mods? Dave if they sound like crap, drop in the JJ el34 and bill me!
RUBY EL34-BHT (Shuguang) I have read are upgraded EL34B-STR tubes which were stock in my VH4, some talk about depenability with these, mine have worked great for 5 years now. I believe Dougs tubes is where I found mine.