Thoughts on current EL-34 tubes

The Siemens tubes are excellent and available from Roger Modjeski of RAM Labs/Music Reference = perhaps the best tube tester in the business.

Hi Viridian, yes that is true of the 6P3S-E but depending on how high the impedance is in the circuitry of the amp they can be used, they actually draw less filament current than an EL-34 which should make them a little easier on the amp. I've been reading Michael Samra's findings with this tube in EL-34 amps over on AA. If the impedance is on the lower side the tubes may be a mismatch.

If you ever hear true NOS Siemens or Telefunken, or Mullard EL34s, or for that matter NOS GE 6CA7s, you'll understand how woefully disappointing are the current faux "Tung-Sol", "Mullard" and various other iterations of this tube coming out of Russia. There are two excellent commercially-available alternatives:

1/ Shuguang Treasure 6CA7 - this sounds closest to the great vintage EL34s of anything in current production.

2/ Mesa Boogie, the guitar amplifier company, still has robustly-tested NOS Siemens EL34 in matched pairs for sale on their web site (go to the Store link). They are relableled Mesa, are genuine, and aren't going to last in their inventory indefinitely, so don't lollygag if you want them. They're worth it.

Phil

I owned a Mesa Baron amp, it is the one piece of equipment that I regret ever selling. It had the tri tube factory upgrade. I had a set of those EL-34 tubes in it and wasn't very impressed with them at all, are you sure those are Siemens tubes? Now I have also heard that the Shuguang Treasure tubes sound real good.

Dan