I hate to say this but forget current production.... If you really want to know what an EL34 is all about get yourself some new old stock (NOS) Mullard xf2's or xf3's. They'll smoke you and last a lifetime.
Thoughts on current EL-34 tubes
I have just put my Jolida JD-1000P back into my system, and when I initially fired it up one of the tubes was obviously bad giving a good light show. I found this kind of strange as the amp has been sitting idle with no power to it for about six months now and the tubes Winged C Svetlanas were working fine when I took it out of the system. I replaced the winged C with another Svetlana for now and ordered up 8 matched Tungsol re-issues as I have heard that these tubes are some of the better of the re-issue tubes out now, what are everyones thoughts on current re-issue EL-34 tube available now.