E84L (EL84) GOLDEN DRAGON

[jockman]

Are these valves any good,? They have EL84/7189A on them.

Many thanks in advance.

Jon

[jockman]

The reason I ask is that there is a quad for sale on evilbay, so, I would relly like opinions before I bid, I have never heard of this brand of valves.
Any help will be much appriciated.

Jon

[dotfret]

A friend of mine has a hifi amp which uses 300B output valves - the Golden Dragon 300B valves were tried in this, as were a lot of others. Golden Dragon gave the nicest sound but were not as nice after a couple of weeks. Since his life is HiFi and they were very expensive, for reliability and long life he settled for Russian valves costing a lot less and lasting a lot longer.
I think you would find those valves are tailored towards HiFi, and not really aimed at being dropped down a flight of stairs and still working at the next gig. I might be wrong, but the experience with the 300B suggests that, if used for making music, they are aimed at those making enough money to afford a revalve every few gigs.

If you really want to be confused, try the choice at Watford Valves -
http://www.watfordvalves.com/
they are reasonable prices, and this is where a lot of names shop!

[Mojocat]

These tubes can sound great in a guitar amp... very crunchy... they came stock in my Orange AD30 and when I tried to swap JJ's in the amp suffered terrible... I put the Dragons back in right away, (and I usually love the JJ's!).

[rjgtr]

Actually the Golden Dragon KT-66s are considered the best sounding and most reliable. Chinese output tubes have really come along way in the last few years.

I also have a set of Chinese 5881s that have a great bluesy vibe.

And Chinese 12ax7s are some of the best sounding and most reliable new production. I don't like them quite as much as JJs, but they are very useful for phase inverters and are a very good general purpose tube.

[jockman]

If you really want to be confused, try the choice at Watford Valves -
http://www.watfordvalves.com/
they are reasonable prices, and this is where a lot of names shop!

You got that right, I was looking at the Harma range, bloody hell, talk about confusing!!!!
I am also getting a bit dissolusioned with Watford, they NEVER answer emails.