Siemens EL 34


I came across Siemens EL 34 tubes for sale at RAM tubes.

My understanding is that these are 1970's tubes manufactured at the old Telefunkin factory.

I have heard conflicting reports of the sonic character of this era Telefunkin tube.  On one extreme warm and large sound stage.  On the other end, thin and a bit bright.

Has anyone heard that era Siemens/ Telefunkin EL 34?

mdrone

Thanks for the lead... I've been doing this a long time and I had not previously heard of HiFiTown.

Do you consider your Amperex/Mullard EL34’s to be head and shoulders superior sounding to your other EL34’s and 6L6’s?

So I have two quads of Mullards; one is amperex and the other true Mullards.

My only point of comparison was the Groove Tube EL 34 . the Mullards are much richer sounding.  I remember when I first used the Amperex Mullards, my son commented that it sounded like the musicians were in the room with us.

 

My 6L6 quads are NOS GE and RCA.  I actually like the GE better.

Both are better than the stock Sovtek the amp came with.

I like the 6L6 better than EL 34 in my amp ( Leben 600). The bass is much tighter with the 6L6 and the sound stage a bit larger.

 

I also have 5881 RCA/ Tungsol.

They are wonderful.

Lastly I am embarrassed to admit I have two sets of Russian NOS 6n3cE which are very musical in the Leben cs600.

Clearly this is an illness; the search for the "perfect" tube. I have more tube life than biological life left.  I calculate that I should have over 40 years of tube-life ( assuming a conservative 5000 hours per quad ).  That should last me into my early 100's.  Hopefully my hearing will last that long as well.

 

Hope this helps

 

Mike

I'd say you are pretty well set on tubes... no need to try more unless you are a collector.

op

if you can, show pics of the telefunken el34’s you are talking about

i don’t believe telefunken actually made el34’s ... in the 80’s in eastern germany rft made slim bottle dimple top el34’s that were labelled many different brands (rft, national, siemens, also telefunken and so on)... very decent tubes but in my experience not in the same league as true uk mullard, dutch amperex, or even, the later japan-made seam topped ones on relocated mullard tooling