Excellent and relatively inexpensive EL34 tubes for your ST-70, Mark IV

Bob Latino

Bob Latino

Admin

Posts: 226
Join date: 2008-11-27
Location: Massachusetts

I have been testing some of the lesser expensive EL34 tubes in my ST-70. One tube that has really impressed me so far is the Shuguang made EL34B. Sometimes these are also sold under Valve Art and Ruby brand names but both the Valve Art and the Ruby are made by Shuguang in China. These are very well made and durable tubes that only retail for $10-$14 a tube depending on where you buy them. Some people tend to knock Chinese made tubes but they have came a long way in the past few years especially in their output tubes. These Shuguang made tubes sound really good. Excellent bottom end and very good in the vocal range. A very well balanced tonal presentation. Not as bright as the ElectroHarmonix EL34 tubes. A few good reviews of the Shuguang EL34B tubes may be found at the links below ...

The Tubestore's EL34 review page

Tubes Asylum review of the Shuguang EL34B

Bob

tubes4hifi

tubes4hifi

Admin

Posts: 38
Join date: 2008-11-30

just as a note, I have heard MOST but not all of these tubes in various ST70s I've had over the years, I'll agree with Bob the Shugang's are excellent, I have saved a quad of them with original Shugang logo from about 4 years ago, along with a quad of 60s era GE 6CA7 "fat boys"
(my favorites) and the newer EH6CA7 "fat boy" tubes. The standard production JJ EL34 is an excellent low cost tube.
I used to have a NOS quad of Siemens EL34s from the 70s and they were also excellent.
Roy www.tubes4hifi.com

GP49

GP49

Posts: 66
Join date: 2009-04-30

I have to agree on the Shuguang EL34s. They sound good in my Dynaco Mk II amplifiers, though the "matched pair" I tried weren't matched as well as I'd like, if my Dynaco were still stock and running a single bias adjustment pot.

With separate bias adjustments, the degree of mismatch I found is no problem; and the match would probably be much better had the tubes been purchased from a vendor as a matched pair or matched quad. These were from a local guitar amp repair shop, which had bought them in bulk straight from China via an EBay listing; so there was no matching done.

1 Excellent and relatively inexpensive EL34 tubes for your ST-70, Mark IV on Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:22 pm

Bob Latino

2 Re: Excellent and relatively inexpensive EL34 tubes for your ST-70, Mark IV on Sat Mar 21, 2009 9:09 pm

tubes4hifi

3 Re: Excellent and relatively inexpensive EL34 tubes for your ST-70, Mark IV on Thu May 14, 2009 3:18 am

GP49