Which EL84?

shane · Post by **shane** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 8:37 pm

Damn. I thought I wouldn't get involved in this yet, but one of the EL84s in my KEL84 just lost a brief argument with a damp cloth (don't ask).

The ones I'm using have this mark, which I think is Edicron: although mine are marked F1LC1 rather than 1411. As far as I can see, Edicron brand valves from a number of different makers, so I'm unlikely to be able to match the three remaining. If I get a pair of these, am I likely to notice much difference between channels? If I end up replacing all four, does anyone have any recommendations? As ever, money is tight, so VFM is all!

ed · Post by ed » Sat Aug 31, 2013 8:45 pm

I may be half asleep Shane, but isn't that £11 for 1 valve...seller has 2 in stock?????

jack · Post by **jack** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 9:20 pm

Edicron have no manufacturing capability - they just rebrand/whitelabel - they could be anyones.

There are a *lot* of EL84 types: "real" EL84s, 6BQ5, 6P14P etc. (EL84M is equivalent to the 6P14P-EV)

See http://www.thetubestore.com/Tubes/EL84-6BQ5-Tube-Types for examples.. there is a reasonable (short) write-up on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EL84

They do seem to sound different, so pairing from the same (genuine/real) manufacturer would be a good plan.

When it comes to Russian equivalents generally, I've found the following to be really useful:
http://www.jogis-roehrenbude.de/Russian ... ue_dat.pdf

shane · Post by **shane** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 9:59 pm

ed wrote:I may be half asleep Shane, but isn't that £11 for 1 valve...seller has 2 in stock?????

No, that was me. Original post edited!

Interesting stuff, Nick. Bit of a minefield...

Phil Y · Post by **Phil Y** » Thu Sep 05, 2013 5:55 pm

Hello Shane,
I think you will not go far wrong with JJ or Electro Harmonix. Both are decent quality for a reasonable cost. In my amp (WD KEL84) the JJ sound a bit warmer and softer of the two.

Phil.

shane · Post by **shane** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:12 am

Intending to just find a stop-gap, I ordered four of these from the Ukraine for £25 all-in: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261232574455? ... 1439.l2649

I'm gob-smacked. They arrived this morning and either they're a bit special or the old Edicrons were absolutely on their last legs. That whole detail retrieval thing is in a different league. I'm just listening to Jim Hall's Concierto and can't get over how "woody" Ron Carter's bass is, and the shimmer around Steve Gadd's cymbals simply wasn't there before, but the thing that's surprising me is the difference in that moment of suspense when after one musical passage finishes and before the next one begins. Magical...

They don't carry a mark, but as far as I can work out, they're Reflektor.

Dead chuffed.

Ali Tait · Post by **Ali Tait** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:16 am

Aye, good them, used them in my KEL 84 when I had it.

Graeme · Post by **Graeme** » Sun Nov 03, 2013 10:59 pm

The link is dead now, what ones did you go with in the end?

jack · Post by **jack** » Mon Nov 04, 2013 4:01 am

Graeme wrote:The link is dead now, what ones did you go with in the end?

Works for me - they are Russian 6ÐŸ14ÐŸ (6P14P) s, equivalent to 7189/6BQ5/EL84 made by Xpo-pul (was called Reflector) in Saratov. Xpo-pul make the Sovtek and a whole bunch of other brands owned by Mike Matthews - EH, Mullard, Gold Lion (Genalex), Svetlana (but only in the USA and Canada), and Tung-Sol. Note that these are *marketing* brands only and are not the same as the original British/American tubes of the same names made in the 50s & 60s...

The "original" Svetlanas were made by SED ( Svetlana Electron Devices) who are controlled by JSC Svetlana (a huge company) in St. Petersburg and have the "winged C" logo - they used the Russian character "C" as phonetically its equivalent to what we call the "S" sound (for Svetlana).

SED ceased production of valves in 2012

The confusion over the "Svetlana" name arose because two factories in the old Soviet era had rights to that name - both the St. Petersburg and Saratov ones - though Svetlana tubes were only made in St. Petersburg.

In 1998, Mike Matthews' "New Sensor Corp." bought the Reflector Saratov factory - Svetlana's US partner in North America (SED Inc.) went bust in 2001 and Matthews bought the rights to the Svetlana name for the USA and Canada only, so the SED St. Petersburg factory used the "winged C" logo there instead. Note that http://www.newsensor.com, http://www.svetlana.com and http://www.sovtek.com point to the same website. Along with the others, http://www.tung-sol.com/ and http://www.ehx.com/, they all share the same company address in New York.

So, in North America only, Svetlana tubes are actually from the Xpo-pul factory in Saratov; in the rest of the world, they are from SED in St. Petersburg. FWIW, the general feeing in the audio world seems to be that SED tubes are superior to the New Sensor owned ones - mechanically they are different too).

Hope that made sense... (also hope its right - the situation with Russian tubes is at best confusing, at worst "allegedly" corrupt).

BTW, Chines tubes made by Shuguang are actually Korean as Samsung & LG own them (ok, and a bit Dutch as Philips has a share) as part of a joint venture!

ed · Post by ed » Mon Nov 04, 2013 8:32 am

nickds1 wrote:
Graeme wrote:
The "original" Svetlanas were made by SED ( Svetlana Electron Devices) who are controlled by JSC Svetlana (a huge company) in St. Petersburg and have the "winged C" logo - they used the Russian character "C" as phonetically its equivalent to what we call the "S" sound (for Svetlana).

So, in North America only, Svetlana tubes are actually from the Xpo-pul factory in Saratov; in the rest of the world, they are from SED in St. Petersburg. FWIW, the general feeing in the audio world seems to be that SED tubes are superior to the New Sensor owned ones - mechanically they are different too).

Hope that made sense... (also hope its right - the situation with Russian tubes is at best confusing, at worst "allegedly" corrupt).

fwiw I believe some svet valves are made by Ryazan. They are ryazan valves just branded by Svetlana. Some of them, including the ones I have(sv572/811/83) are said to be Ryazan and may still be in limited production although most of the info on the net says production has ceased. There is lots of rumour about these...political/marketing? who knows!

jack · Post by **jack** » Mon Nov 04, 2013 10:11 am

ed wrote:fwiw I believe some svet valves are made by Ryazan. They are ryazan valves just branded by Svetlana. Some of them, including the ones I have(sv572/811/83) are said to be Ryazan and may still be in limited production although most of the info on the net says production has ceased. There is lots of rumour about these...political/marketing? who knows!

Agreed - Electronpribor Manufacturing Corporation in Ryazan specialise in power triodes (audio and RF) and made the SV811-3 & -10 (u of 3.5 & 10 respectively), SV572-3/-10/-30 & -160 (u of 3.5, 9.5 ,30 & 160 respectively) for Svetlana (though they sell the 811-x directly as well) - Some of these have an "A" suffix indicating that they're straight-sided rather than coke bottle shaped.

I believe that SED made all their other valves themselves - as far as I can tell from their website they're only selling NOS - no new manufacture at all, so by implication that may include white-labelled production from Electronpribor.

audio-talk

Which EL84?

#1 Which EL84?

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11