Seeking best sounding El-34 tubes for my power amplifier


I have a 150 watt monoblocks  amplifiers made by Thor Audio. Thor Audio is out of business for quite a few years. Each 150 watt monoblock is round and has 8 El-34 output tubes on each monoblock for a total of 16 tubes.  I currently have Sovtek tubes. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you. 

kjl1065

That certainly is a rare bird, I’m sure they are quite impressive. My experience with EL-34’s in other amps brought me to love the Svetlana Winged C’s, but they are pretty much gone. The other issue is what’s still available has been picked over and are new factory seconds , so expensive and unreliable. My Rogue M-180’s make 180 watts each with four power tubes. What I did with them was use new production Gold Lion KT-77’s over EL-34’s.  For me I had that desired mid range and a sturdy tube that endured being run fairly hard. In my case it’s manually biased which gave me more latitude. Although not a direct answer , but possibly helpful. Regards, Mike B. 

I upgraded my PrimaLuna’s EL34 recently and went with Mallard’s because of their liquid midrange... definitely worth it over the JJ. I did a lot of research before buying. I think these are the sweet spot. PrimaLuna EL34’s are good as well. 

 

I'd drop the question in an AI with your equipment and use that as an additional source. You can check it with our recommendations and observations. 

"Best" is always subjective.  List 17 different EL34s, and each one will be someone's favorite.