Your Guide to the Best Tubes and Tube Amps - KT88 & EL34

Ray Tubes EL34 Select & Ray Tubes KT88 Select review

Ray Tubes KT88 Select and EL34 Select tubes are now available to customise and upgrade the sound of your DAC, pre-amp or amp. Let me help you decide which is the best tube.

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00:00 Introduction
02:37 Ray Tubes EL34 Select
07:33 Ray Tubes KT88 Select
10:47 Wrap-up

#audiophile #audioreview #tubeamp

[GCKelloch]

The brain can't accurately recall sound character for more than a few seconds. Whatever all the "corksniffers" imagine you hear in expensive tubes when tube swapping is probably just the level of distortion along with your confirmation bias, or in the case of Cryo-freezing: a tilt toward the high end from the off-spec lowered internal resistances. I assume these tubes are made by one of the four tube factories. Maybe Psvane? The Tube Store has some much cheaper fully tested select options in their Preferred Series worth checking out. A less expensive sweet/fat/punchy option than a good KT88 or KT66 is the Reflektor-made Tung Sol 7581A.

[nihongo]

After many years I use JJ for lushness and EH for clarity with a touch of tubey character

[biketech]

I find this less a guide to tubes as an advertisement for the Ray Tubes .

[banani]

Great vid L! I'm new to tubes and that helped a lot. Juat a tip though: what about doing some sound demoes from each tube? I know it ain't perfect over YouTube and everything, but it might give someone curious a hint :) Keep it up!

[byok.lighting]

Brilliant Video and love the presentation, well done

[NexusSGIceJelly]

You can also play with driver tube matching with different KT88 to find the right richness balance

[lensman]

Power tubes do influence the sound of an amp, but not to the extant that people imagine. Your preamp tubes actually have huge influence in how the power tube is fed. KT88 can sound dirty and can sound super clean depending on how they were fed, this is due to their superb dynamic range. After all said and done, most of the tone of a guitarist for a given guitar comes from his finger tips and the way he plays the guitar. The amp mostly fulfils the role of distorting that tone.

[ronpower]

I find it highly suspect, when countless YouTubers feature the same product at the same time.

[MichelLinschoten]

I have a kt88 and el34b, and i by a large margin prefer the el34. The kt88 sounds noticable veiled in comparison. Pre amp tubes are all replaced too. I don't understand how the kt88 sounds so veiled vs the el34

[FranzHermann-my]

I have a hand build, by a musician, 40kg with AE transformers 2 * 18 watt power amp. The pre amp is for now the Audiolab M-Dac+, a mesmorising kind of gear ☺ For better sound, i use a Trennstelltransformator LTS 006 isolation transformer. 40 kilogram. I use is to warm up my amplifier more kindly but mainly to avoid disturbance on the net. The sound is like a dream so good. Together they are 80kg. Power amp only 😍 The power amp and the transformer together weigs more then 80kg. The sound is alike.

[crate]

Tubes equals ultimate note separation. k66 is almost a 6l6 and have a tighter low end as el34 more for midrange and a British sound. kt88 are just yummy

[mildred]

Great analysis🎉. Kt66 is far more delicious than Kt88. El34 llittle too creamy and colored with week low end. For vocal, El34 is definitely crispier than Kt66 which is more on the melow side. GEC kt66 tube is true legend of all legends. 6L6 is a little brother to Kt66.

[crate]

try ruby tubes they are really good and have air

[scottspencer]

Ever try the Tung Sol 7581A (a 35 watt 6L6 variant)?

[toddhupp]

yes my GL KT88s seem a bit harsh with ATM tweeters. EL34s may correct this?

[jackolbean]

Favorite versatile, top end tube amp? Excited to get into tubes! Curious about how 300b's compare to the kt66/88 and el34... Thanks for the knowledge.

[sheerkhanful]

Will you be covering the Apos Ray Reserve KT88s? I have yet to see a single review of this tube anywhere.

[prabinpaudel]

I hope apos is working on reserve version of kt88 and el34 as well. And maybe a 300b 🤞

[tamersosman]

Can u kindly recommend for me a compatible replacement tubes that works with fosi P3 pre amp ?

[Nearest_Neighbor]

Noob question here. Is it common that EL34 amps are able to use all these different tubes? An auto bias is probably something I want to look out for to make the rolling more convenient? I'm looking at this amp for quite a while but didn't pull the trigger yet. Getting an assembled one with the upgraded transformers is fairly hard.

This is also the one you modded the headphone output right?