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Seeking early break up for EL34, with good singing overtone properties. This is for my JCM 800, vertical inputs all tube signal path. I just recently bought a pair of mullard EL34s and the amp works, but it sounds kinda weak. Not as lively as before

Probably needs biasing, but I have not learned that trick yet. I will have a socket probe on order by next month so I will be able to check the tube voltages in a relatively safe way. So I will bias the amp next month.

Any suggestions for EL34s that are nice and musical, but mainly break up early into saturation overdrive? Thanks!

EL34s are very standard and don't have much gain. Generally Mullard/Philips are considered to be the best, but don't expect any particular brand to give you early break up into "saturation overdrive". Likewise, it's unlikely that rebiasing will give you that. Just continue with your variac experiments.

6V6 ? JJ's can handle up to 500V on the plates. They'll break up allright

Good suggestion