EL34 differences in air & stage depth?

I have the SED Winged C's in my VAC Avatar. They are many strides ahead of the Shuguang tubes imo. I would like to try some of the NOS tubes I read about but they would burn too big a hole in my wallet if you know what I mean.

I haven't tried any of the other EL's mentioned but the SED's seem to have concensus on this and other sites. That helped me with my decision and I have not thought about changing.

I also changed out the 12ax7's and 12au7's with NOS Bugle Boy tubes. Thay made a remarkable difference as well.

Good luck.

Thanks, Bj...I can say for sure, votes for current production EL34 favor Winged SED heavily. I'm with you on $ expenditure for NOS. The Siemens are within reach but even here I'm a bit confused and seeing pricing that seems to vary from $225 - $300+ for a quad. Seems like Siemens mftd. for different brands as well. Plus I always think about needing spares or another quad in the future when maybe the supply picture has changed and availability is even worse than today. Good current production (if there is such a thing) appeals to the pragmatist in me.

To all who replied...Thanks for your input. For various reasons (not just cost)...I decided to go with SED Winged C EL34s. If these don't get the job done, I'll give further consideration to the Siemens NOS option. What I've leared that complicated that choice is the range of "Siemens" NOS tubes out there.

I found this link, enlightening:
http://www.tube-classics.de/TC/Tubes/AudioTubes.htm

Right now I´m listening to a Harma EL34 quad in my Leben 660P amp and they are fantastic and they are cheap. You can find them in Watford Valves from UK.

I second the Electro Harmonixes are very good too.

BTW, I´ve been trying other Harma tubes (KT-66, E34L, 5881) and they are great.

Greetings from Spain.

Daniel

Jesusa0

The Harma E34L appears to be a house brand of Watford Valves, likely a JJ Tesla E34L based on construction and shape. The price at Watford Valves is 14.77 pounds (about $23.50 each US Dollar).

For those of us in the USA this tube is available from dealers here for $17.50 or less. I'm not challenging your choice of tubes, just offering choices for Audiogon members in the USA.

I used Tesla E34L tubes in my Wolcott amps back when I owned them. It is indeed a great tube, better than many discussed here but in my opinion not as good as Wing C.

As I mentioned already, the best choice is used or new old stock Mullard, Siemens or Telefunken.

Ghosthouse, that site in Germany is the property of Karsten Schmidt. I've been dealing with him for many years. His tubes are exactly as represented and he stands behind his product.