NOS EL34 becoming extinct

Try to find some Svetlana Winged C’s. Last I saw they were $100 Ea. They are fabulous. I trade tubes with a friend and he loaned me some Winged C 6L6, they were really nice too ! He’s a guitar guy , not a stereo fan. He stocked up on NOS Mullard FX 3 ( I think ), and they are his favorite. It’s off topic but I gave him some new production Tung Sol 5751’s to try as I was impressed , especially being new production. My pre takes 8 Russian 6H and they’re $300 each. 😮 So I’m running Sovtek. Happy Hunting , Mike B. 

One of my amps is a low power SEP from Dennis Had. I purchased a pair of the new production GL KT-77’s from one of the reputable sellers long before there were supply issues. At about the 50 hour mark one failed with a huge pop through my speaker and damaged my amp. I was able to ship it back to Dennis for repair. I included the tubes for him to examine as the bad tube showed no change externally. Out of the approximately 20 Winged C’s I’ve had , one failed. It was a 6550 in my 50 watt mono block not an EL34. I heard a mild pop and turned off the amp. The envelope had cracked turning the inside of the glass frost white. There was no damage to my push pull amp. Last month I had Rogue Audio upgrade a pair of M-180’s to their Dark edition and inquired about new power tubes in addition to the small signal tubes supplied in the upgrade. They currently use only Psvane KT-88’s in their amps as they do not trust the quality of new production GL or Tung Sol tubes. The octet of GL KT -77’s that I had were about done. I really want some Tung Sol KT 120’s and am not thrilled about paying Uncle Chester $1100 for an octet. Another interesting fact with the upgrade is they no longer supply nos small signal tubes ( same issue )  and supply new Tung Sol 5751’s and JJ gold pin 12AU7’s. The JJ’s still suck , but the Tung Sol’s sounded really nice. I think I’m turning into one of those snippy old farts that I dislike. 😆 I guess death , taxes , and new production tubes are inevitable. Cheers , Mike B.