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New production EL84/6BQ5 tubes?

Right now there finally seems to be alot of new choices in this tube type. Has anyone out there done their own shoot out of these tubes? How do they compare to your favorite NOS types? I am curious about the new Mullards, Gold Lions, TAD (Tube Amp Doctor),etc. Or, do you feel the standard Electro Harmonix and Sovteks are good enough. How about sharing your experiences and saving us all a bunch of time and money. I'll share this: I am very impressed with the Gold Lions even though my reference is NOS Mullard or "D" getter Bugle boys. I'm thinking of getting another set of the Lions, but maybe there is something even better out there. What do you think? Amps by the way are the Fisher 30A mono's
hifiharv
jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,503 posts
 
Was looking into 6BQ5 tubes and found this old thread. One of my favorite tube vendors really likes the SOVTEK EL84M. Says they are "Balanced and Clean" sounding that are very smooth sounding and tons of headroom. Anybody else find this true?
gundam91
506 posts
 
Yes. I had compared them to NOS tubes and found them, surprisingly, to sound very good. And I had a very negative preconception of the brand prior to trying them out due to their horrible reputation with 6DJ8/6922 tubes.

The pair I had tried was lent to me by a friend. According to him, these were from the 1980s. I am not sure if recent vintage EL84Ms are from the same manufacturing plant as some have suggested that they are not.

FrankC
russ69's avatar
russ69
3,360 posts
 
The NOS RCAs are very nice and much better than the stock Jolida tubes. I just replace the RCAs with Mullard reissues and that is also a quality tube, nicely made and good sound, just a tad more neutral than the NOS RCAs.
socal77
3 posts
 
I have a Bob Carver Black Magic VTA20S that Bob has setup to put out at least 20 watts per channel, and requires the "M" version for its more robust design (I actually had two of these configured for 40 watts in mono mode, and intended to trade both in when I ordered my Bob Carver Raven Beauty 200s, but when I tried one of the Black Magics I could not part with it and so I bought it back-it put a spell on me). I have not found any EL-84M tubes other than the current production Sovteks. Since we appear to be heating up the Cold War I thought I helped win years ago, I ordered eight more Sovtek "M's" before sanctions hit. Anyone know of any NOS EL-84M suppliers.
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