Amp shopping

[sharkboy]

Well, no, there is nothing, even NOS that can touch a good Ei EL84 at the very high registers, but the Shuguang ones seem very balanced and quite friendly to my ears at first listen. A little less aggressive, even a little softer, but no hint of the 6v6 softness that you get with a JJ.

Most of what little information I have has come from Branislav (on one of those other lists that you and I are on) who lives in Nis. I think he said that the factory was bought by a private party. It is kind of weird, because some companies in the states have gotten more Ei tubes and some of them stopped saying "we can't get them anymore." My concern is that for every day they aren't making tubes it is going to be a little bit harder to get back to where they were in their heyday.

I'm not going to give up on Ei just yet. Nevertheless, it is good to have a backup in which I'm confident, now. I will likely mess around with some more quads of matched tubes (you guys, I really do hear a difference in my amps when I use matched output tubes- I think that this is less important with mushy or less trebly amps, but using brands that agree with the taste of the player is probably most important.)

[soundmasterg]

I may have to try some of those Shuguangs Mark. I have more than enough EI's though for at least another 5 years for my AC30, so no rush on my part. (I have 5 matched quads of prewar EI EL84's and lots of pre war EI 12AX7's too.)

I'm hoping EI gets back in the game with the EL84, 6CG7, 12AX7 and KT90, but we'll see.

[jnbass]

I hope so!