Are MULLARD NOS EL34s and LTA ZOTL40 REF worth the price of admission?

i concur these are outstanding amplifiers, unique in how they present the music, a precise yet very beautiful sound, certainly not your granddaddy’s rose colored, rolled off, smoothed over tubey sound

but at over 8 grand new, 5-6 grand 2nd hand, there are a lot of options out there, many of which have more impressive published power figures

i, like most owners of these big zotl’s love em, hang on to them, they need to be heard to be appreciated, and then they become beloved (of course, as always speaker matching is important to get right)

pre and post covid, these zotl reference amps have driven speakers in some of the nicest sounding rooms at a number of hifi shows

I bit the bullet by recently replacing the tubes in my REGA ISIS VALVE cdp/DAC with NOS MULLARDs.

Were they better ? Yes. No surprise here.

Were they worth it ?
(1) That is a personal value judgement, because they are comparatively expensive. (2) In short …. “YES” for me, because it’s for a $13,000+ unit wherein

(a) the added outlay for NOS MULLARDs is a very modest percentage of the sum total , and

(b) the added performance improvement quotient in a highend unit actually capable of the added resolution in NOS MULLARDs is clear and unambiguous.

Would I spend the cash for NOS MULLARDs on a modestly built and modestly priced unit? No…it’s a very risky poker shoot at best for units in this pricepoint strata , and a highly likely disappointing outcome in a common sense approach for failures …for the same reasons highlighted above. They alone won’t be a silver bullet fix providing a Jesus moment here.

I have to mention that the latest (+) plus mods are a very big improvement in sound. If you have an older ZOTL40 the cost of the plus mods are well worth the price and the bump is bigger than that of pricey NOS tubes.