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In Reply to: Re: Stock EL34 tubes ID in Cayin A-50T posted by R7 on April 19, 2007 at 21:00:02:
I completely disagree with Catch22 above. That is if he was talking about new Shuguangs. They are "EL34/6CA7" fat bottles, currently available from the usual sources.
Are they the best EL34s available? No but they are not "unlistenable" in my opinion.
I think the Electro Harmonix 6CA7 is a good sounding tube. Also you can try the JJ KT77 and SED EL34. All good sounding to my ears.
Follow Ups:
Thanks for the response... I don't want to get between you and Catch22 :) so I'll just say its pretty much moot to me without a positive ID. I do know I am not that happy with what I'm hearing, but I have a lot to do besides just tube rolling to get to where I want to be.I do appreciate your recommendations though, and Catch22's as well. I am looking for warmth with clarity, and, going from other posts as well, am strongly considering a set of the SED EL34 to establish some kind of baseline. If I tried a 6CA7 I'd probably try to dig up a set of the Ei. Especially in the midrange, how do you guys feel the sound of the 6CA7 and/or KT77 differ from the sound of the EL34, in your experience?
BTW, I emailed VASAUDIO, the Cayin distributor, and all he would give is that the EL34 tubes in the A-50T are "OEM". Not much help.
TubeDepot.com and TubeStore.com. Guitar players seem to be able to describe a tubes character better than biased audiophiles.
I'm sure the Cayin uses Chinese (probably Shuguang) tubes.
Although it's doubtful that guitar players are any more or any less biased than audiophiles, common sense would say that tubes play a different role in guitar amps than they do in audio amps. Case in point - based on the high ratings that guitar players give current production JJ 6922's I purchased a pair for my preamp, and although the JJ's do sound pretty good, ultimately the JJ's are a bit rolled off in the highs, and they also hiss unacceptably for preamp use. Now seeing as the vast majority of tubed guitar amps don't use tweeters but instead use large drivers (speakers) for their sound output, do you think guitar players are going to notice if a tube is rolled off in the highs? Or even care if it is? And seeing as tubed guitar amps hiss and hum and are by their very nature noisy, do you think that guitar players are going to notice how quiet a particular brand of tube is or isn't, especially when running their amps into distortion at volume ten? I think not.A guitar player's evaluation of a tube can certainly be helpful and have some merit, but because guitar and audio amps are such different animals, for audio use I would give much more weight to an audiophile's opinion of a particular tube than I would a guitar player's.
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