Need help, Sovtek, Winged C, Electro-Harmonix EL-34

[steve]

I have a friends amp and he has Sovtek and Winged C EL34 tubes. The Winged Cs sound thinner than the Sovteks. Conversely, the Sovteks sound fuller than the Winged Cs.

My Question is, how do the Electro-Harmonix, JJ sound compared to the Sovteks?

Any help is appreciated.

Steve

[richidoo]

That was my experience also. The Svetlana (SED winged-C) el34s weren't so great.  Nor were JJ KT-77. I never listened to JJ EL-34. But I loved the Groove Tubes E34Ls, which were made in JJ factory, supposedly using GE equipment and raw materials just for that tube.

The Groove Tubes E34Ls were excellent  before the quality went south and they became time bombs. Maybe they ran out of the GE raw materials and started using JJ materials and had same reliability as all JJ tubes. Every JJ tube I have owned has had some technical problem, except for the first batch of Manley branded E34Ls sourced from GT.

Shuguang Black Treasure 6CA7 is probably the best current  production EL-34 tube available now.

I used EH EL-34s for a very brief time in my Cary SLI-80 and they sounded good, typical EH. Fat dense tone, good detail, but not super smooth. The Cary manual said they were interchangable with 6550 on that amp so I played them at 75mA bias current and blew them up.  One survived which I used as a spare for the Groove Tubes.

When the Groove Tubes tube had a bad batch, Manley sent me EH 6CA7s, which was at the time their new oem EL34 tube. It sounded unfocused and too relaxed compared to the awesome Groove Tubes, but it was reliable as are all New Sensor tubes (like sovtek.)

A couple years ago, Bill O'Connell said he had a few quads of vintage GrooveTubes E34Ls on ice. He might still have them? They are very low distortion, very intense musically.

Grant Fidelity is selling new release PsVane EL-34s now $136/quad. They also sell the new PSvane version of black treasure for 300-400/quad. There is an Ebay seller of Shuguang Black treasure tubes but I don't know his name.

[topround]

I hated the el 34 Winged c's in my amp, nice tone but dead sounding , no life no dynamics just boring.

The Shugang(Valve Art) el34b's were much better and I also had Tesla el34's from the 70's that were excellent.
I tried the Black Treasures( from a friend) and they were excellent but expensive,very balanced and refined,  for the money the Valve art el 34b are hard to beat, they are just hard to beat even if not on a budget.
I know some people are anti Chinese tubes, but some of them really are good!

Mike

Just my experience with these tubes in my gear in my system, YMMV.

[steve]

Thanks for the input guys. Would either of you say the EH EL34 was close to the Sovteks in sound? If not, were they fuller or thinner in tonal aspect?

Cheers.
Steve

[Bunky]

Hey Steve,the EH sound fat exactly like Rich said.i have had several types of EL34 and to be honest i was not crazy about any of them.i think the 6L6 has it all over the EL34 and if you can change a resistor to be able to run 6L6's in your friends amp it will sound much better in my opinion. Jim McShane sells matched quads of very good russian military 6L6 varients for $50 bucks.

[steve]

Thanks for the information gents. Much appreciated.

Cheers.

[richidoo]

I've never heard sovtek el34s.

I always wondered if Sovtek and EH aren't exactly the same part with different marketing programs. They are made in the same factory and are usually the same price. Remember the cold war, some people might prefer a French sounding "Electro Harmonix" instead of "Soviet-Teknology"

Off topic: Svetlana was the name of Stalin's daughter...

[lonewolfny42]

Off topic: Svetlana was the name of Stalin's daughter...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Alliluyeva

In 1967, she caused an international furor when she defected and became a naturalized citizen of the United States.