Seeking best sounding El-34 tubes for my power amplifier

Sophia Electric RL-34 tubes have a clear detailed sound, but they are expensive. You can find them on ebay.

CRYOTONE EL34 (wathenspeakers.com) are super reliable, low/no noise, crystal clear, and run much “cooler” than normal or NOS tubes. The latter may be important if you’re running 16 of them! The CRYOTONE’s are very versatile and make a wide variety of music sound great. If you want the more old-fashioned, lush and liquidy mid range I like the Mullards, too. 
 

I don’t have any experience with PSvane but I have some friends that use them and like them. Honestly, with what I know about tubes today, I would get whichever power tubes are good sounding and a good price. I believe that if you are using a lot of power tubes in your amplifier. It will be much reasonable and cheaper to buy reasonably priced EL 34 power tubes. You can tweak the system and make small adjustments to get the sound that you want by changing the smaller input and drive tubes along with the various options of cables that are on the market. For example, when I got my Conrad Johnson premiere four years ago it came with all Chinese tubes Chinese EL 34 tubes. The first thing I said to myself was that I was going to pull out all those cheap Chinese tubes and put in my good tubes, but after listening to the amplifier and hearing nothing wrong with the way, it sounded with the Chinese EL 34 tubes I left those tubes in there, and in fact, I purchased more of the same exact set of those Chinese tubes. So now I have at least 20 in stock of those same Chinese tubes as back ups for My Conrad Johnson premium four amp. I also own a Conrad Johnson premier one B amplifier. That amplifier uses 12 EL 34. On that amplifier I am using all JJEL 34 tubes. I made adjustments with the input and the driver tubes along with the cables so that ultimately I would get I will be pleased with the sound. On my VTL amplifiers, which are custom-made with the larger transformers and output, transformers, and all the capacitors inside all upgraded, including the wiring, all upgraded to the top line components on the VTL amplifiers I’m using all Russian EL 34 tubes. And I chose all these various different tubes because these amps that I got came with those tubes and when I listen to, they sounded fine so I kept the tubes that were in there. Now I have a lot of small amplifiers that take only 4 EL34 tubes. All my small amplifiers those are the ones that I put the Teslas, the Mullards, the Amperex, all the special expensive EL 34s go in my smaller amplifiers that only require four power tubes. All my big amplifiers that take 16 EL 34s, 12 EL 34s, or 8EL 34 I use whatever reasonably priced EL 34 tube I can get as long as it’s a good performer. So if I were you, if my amplifier takes a lot of power tubes, just get a really good EL34 that’s reasonably priced and put more attention on rolling the input and driver tubes. 

Well, it also depends on how much you use your amp. If you've got the funds I would talk with Brent from Audiotubes, he will get you some great vintage tubes for probably $150-$200 each. 

I bought a matched quad of Mullards XF2 for my VAC Avatar SE on usaudiomart for $500. Not truly new but test as new. Brent had them NOS for $200 each, I decided to save a little, but next time I will probably get them from him, as I did all my 12AX7 and 12AU7 tubes. He is very honest and easy to work with, not to mention that he knows this stuff.

Kjl1065, I really don’t see a need to purchase EL34 power tubes from Brent. I’ve gotten tubes from him in the past and everything worked out well but you’re gonna pay very high prices for the tubes. I have several tubes testers in my home so I’ve been able to buy tubes off many site at reasonable prices and test and match them. When it comes to 8 power tubes, it makes sense to buy them new on the many website available including eBay. I’ve purchased many new tubes off eBay with fine results. You opened this topic mentioning you presently have Sovtek EL34’s in your amp. If it was me, I would leave the Sovtek’s in. This is coming from someone that owns a ton of tubes. I personally don’t like Sovtek. In comparison to other tubes, I’ve found them lacking a little in openness and fleshing out the music in an immediate way. But recently I setup a headphone system in my house and didn’t quite like the balance of tone I was getting from the system so I began rolling some tubes and I started with one of the small input tubes on the headphone tube amp. Well I had some really great tubes in my collection, Telefunken, Amperex, RCA black plate, GE, Tungsol, Raytheon etc. The tube I settle on that gave me the sound I preferred the best hands down was a Sovtek and I don’t like Sovteks but for the synergy, it was the one I liked the best. Many of the more popular tubes I tried did sound clearer, and more detailed with greater resolution than the Sovtek but the Sovtek gave me the perfect balance of what my headphone system needed. So even though I’m not a fan of Sovtek tubes, I would keep yours in your amp and tweak around them. If you really feel like you want something different, there are a lot of really good new EL34 tubes available. I wouldn’t bother with anything vintage since you need 8. Sometimes people buy the best (clearest) sounding item and it’s not a good match for their system. So I wouldn’t bother be careful trying to buy the best EL34 tube.