GE 6CA7/EL34-anybody?

[ben.]

I came across this in my research for good replacements in my new bass guitar amp. (Music Man HD one thirty-Leo Fender's answer to his own Bassman) As you guys can gather from my past posts, I am clearly biased towards older production tubes, but in an application that will probably see yearly (or so) replacement of the OP tubes, I am flexible on this. At $180/quad, they're considerably more than Euro/Slav current production (JJs go for about $40 a quad), but if they're comparable to NOS GE or RCA, then they're pretty cost-effective.

Apparently GT bought up a bunch of materials and tooling from GE when they closed shop. Could be a good source for the many of you that run EL34. They'l supposedly take much hotter bias than any other new tube, and last longer, too. Who's tried 'em? The research I've done on MusicMan amps with these is initially encouraging, but have no info from anyone I know. If they can take the abuse that MM amps dish out (700V B+), then they would be quite a tube for home use, assuming they sound good.

From GrooveTubes:

The Groove Tubes 6CA7GE is a USA-style power pentode tube with similar specifications to the European style EL34 tube. However, the 6CA7 differs in design from the common EL34 types by the use of an active beam-forming electrode similar to that of the 6L6 and 6550. Groove Tubes purchased the actual GE production formulas, along with many of the original General Electric machines and vintage Plate materials via the closing of the GE tube factory several years ago. Using these original machines, the original components and their secret processing recipe, GT was able to authentically reproduce the classic GE power tube. Pittman says, The 6CA7GE will appeal to players using Marshall EL34-style amps (and the many Marshall impersonators), providing a whole new sonic signature option that will certainly please a wide range of musical playing styles. If I had to simplify the description, the GT6CA7GE is somewhere between a Mullard EL34 and a GE 6L6more chest' and certainly more power than any EL34 tube. Plus, they are directly interchangeable in all EL34 circuits (with proper rebiasing, as always).

[Duke Spinner]

i used to run sylvania 6ca7 in my marshall & orange amps ... the orange overdrives were esp. hard on the el 34's because of very high B+ .. never had a bad 6ca7, and .. i used 'em hard .. 10/10/10/10 .. everything maxxed out !