EL34 Lovers?

I am told that the importance of the L versus the standard is that in my circuit it is produce better bass presence compared with other EL34s (more solid and tuneful - the amp is suprisingly good in the bass department). The amp also runs Class A to 22 watts (it is a 30 watt amp with a pair of EL34s)and I think the voltage spec you mention has something to do with that, but I am talking way above my head now. When I spoke with the designer I was eager to discuss a bunch of NOS options for the EL34, 12AX7, and 6922 slots - he said he tried most of them (a lot of them anyway)and he still felt the JJ in his circuit would be hard to beat - I certainly understand why he would not want NOS EL34s as the standard tube. I am going to ask if any harm is done in trying the EL34 simply based on the plate voltage handling differences.

JJ Kt-77's are killer tubes that can be swapped in place of any EL-34. They are basically a "Super El-34" IMHO as they have a better electron flow construction than any EL-34 (because they were designed to do many things better electrically than 34's comparably). When I compared them to NOS Svetlanas (cryo'd too), Triple point matched Electro Harmonics, cryo'd JJ EL-34L's, NOS Mullard XF-2's....the KT-77's prevailed above all. These tubes are much more linear top to bottom, more transparent, better focused sound stage with better bass definition and cleaner treble to boot! They had me discover something I wasn't even aware of when I compared them to all the other el-34s. The 34's all have what I would call a "pasty" high end (to varying degrees mind you, the Mullards being the least offensive here) that I wasn't aware of until I substituted the KT-77s during comparisons, where the 77's highs where clean as a whistle! The only downside the 77's have sonically is that they are not as bloomy or romantic in the midrange as some of the 34's. That is a coloration IMHO but I can see how it may help some systems sound more involving. What more can I say, I love these new 77's that were just brought to market a little more than a year ago.

Pubul,You will be very happy with the music reference rm-9se.I have the rm-9 mk 1 and just put a new octet of el 34 winged c,I could not be more pleased.My system sounds better than ever.Troy

I have a pair of Quicksilver Silver 60s running Tesla E34Ls that Mike Saunders, the designer of the amp, matched for me. They sound amazing. So open and involving, just totally sweet amps.

The Quicksilver Mid Mono or Triode are two other is amps on my EL34 "hit" list. Aside from the additional power of the RM9 (the QSs are 50 watts), which is proabably not necessary with my Merlin VSMs, the three amps would seem to be good ones to compare.