Valve Differences

gubble

So I've seen a few posts about what's the best 6L6 valve and having recently had my amp revolved with pricey Mesa Valves I have zero idea what makes the different manufacturers different.

I was under the impression that there were only a couple of valve manufacturing plants and that some valve brands were simply rebadged versions of others.

Sorry for sounding a bit dim but I'd love to know the answer.

ICBM

The valves often sound subtly - or occasionally not so subtly - different. There are also differences in reliability, particularly regarding amps with higher voltages or which run the valves at above the designed maximum power dissipation, physical robustness and how long they last if they wear out rather than failing.

There are three main factories now - Shuguang (China), New Sensor (Russia) and JJ (Slovakia). Almost all new-production valves will be from one of these three and are often rebadged by other distributors, but that doesn't mean they're all exactly the same - Shuguang and New Sensor make many different types of the same valve names.

There are also dozens of old-production manufacturers, but this can also be a minefield since some of those were rebranded a lot as well.

jpfamps

A lot of uplift on rebranded valves such as MESA is the extra testing that they are subjected to.

It's difficult to assess the merit of the testing as few if any vendours give details of their testing regime.

MESA valves though do seem remarkably expensive; the last quad of EL34s I fitted for a customer were £140 (!).