Tube el34


Hello, I'm in the process of upgrading my tube on a Conrad-johnson cav-50. I used Electro-Harmonic at the moment. It is possible to by Match Quad of them. Witch el34 out there is the best sounding? Mullard el34? There a process of cryogenic blabla to -300? is it good?

Thank you for your time

peter
dogy
I always get a kick out of people who rant and rave about how good the Dyna ST-70 is. It is a nice sounding amp, but certainly no world beater. I owned one back in the day that I picked up from the original owner in beautiful condition. My next tube amp after that (this is going back some years)was an ARC D-76. The D-76 is so far superior to the ST-70 that it is like compairing a boy to a man. The poor ST-70 was a wimp in comparision to the D-76.
Let's see- You're comparing an amp that was introduced around 1960, and rated at 35WPC(actually more like 17WPC in reality) with one that came out in 1974, sporting 75WPC. Gee- I'm amazed that there was such a difference in their performance!! There have been numerous upgrades and mods offered for the ST-70. Many that truly improve it's output and presentation. It doesn't take much to bring one up to the level of performance of today's amps(of equiv. power). I enjoyed mine for quite a few years(performing my own mods), as the mid/high amp in a bi-amped system. BTW- The production of the ST-70 almost reached 300,000 units. A pretty popular amplifier it seems.
thank you for all this info. Maybe i will stick with EH el34. People says that they lacking bass control. But if they are musical it fine for me.

What do you thing of the paste for the connector? is it good? Do you know groove tube gt-el34?

thank you again

pete dogy
There was a blind shoot out of EL 34 tubes done by golden eared blindfolded audiophiles by Vacuum Tube Valley a short while ago of a total of 15 different EL 34 variants including Mullards, EH, etc and new and NOS Original TESLAS and the original NOS TESLAS were the hands down winner and blind favorite. Unfortunately they are hard to find and increasingly $$$.
I have used the original Tesla E34Ls for almost 20 years, and still have enough in reserve(not for sale, by the way) to last me for some time. I also have a good number of the later issued JJTeslas, and yes, I have compared the two, and also feel the originals trump the JJs in the areas of slightly greater clarity and top end detail and deeper, more controlled bass. I also have a dozen Siemens made AEG EL34s, which though nice sounding, don't quite give me the balance I like with my original Teslas. At about the time I purchased those Teslas, I tried Svetlanas, but have never listened to the more current Winged C Seds. I attributed the same characteristics to the Svetlanas as Ponnie has to the Seds---not involving enough and lacking top end extension. I have not tried the EH or any of the Mullard EL34s, and cannot use KT77s in my Air Tight amps. Of course, these are my impressions utilizing my componentry. As they say, YMMV.