There is a lot of confusion in the market on Svetlana and Winged C Valves. A number of UK suppliers claiming they are selling current production Winged C valves which are made in the St Petersburg factory in Russia.
By the way, the “C” is the Russian letter for “S” so it is the logo for the brand using the company name first letter.
Here is a cut and paste from a well known valve reseller in the London area ( cut and pasted today 21st June, 2018)
On valve sellers websites
“Svetlana Electron Devices, St. Petersburg: The Svetlana winged C is a major Russian power-tube manufacturer. Formerly a part of the huge Svetlana collective factory. The valves that we stock under the Svetlana/winged C are the original items made by the JSC Svetlana Company that owns and operates the Svetlana factory in St. Petersburg, Russia.”
Here is another example from 21st June 2018 from another reseller,
“JSC Svetlana is a Russian company that owns and operates the Svetlana factory in St. Petersburg, Russia, which has been making vacuum tubes for almost a century and are the original Svetlana produced tubes.”
The Facts
The factory ceased production in 2012. There is no current production in St Petersburg. On this link you can see the official announcement on the SED website. Existing stock was sold off and there might be some left after six years of no production. I would guess the most popular valves such as the 6L6 and the EL34 would sell out first and the less common ones still to be available
Electro Harmonix bought the rights to manufacture Svetlana branded valves which are now manufactured in the world’s largest valve/ tube factory in Saratov, Russia. However the brand licence is limited to a few countries and this excludes almost all of Europe.
While ValveTubeGuitarAmps would love to be able to stock these valves, we are not allowed to directly import them into the UK. The only option is to buy in the “grey’ market and the issues with doing this is that it leaves us open to receiving valves on unknown origin and possibly even fakes. Yes- there is a whole industry out there faking valves !
Some time I wrote a blog on the main manufacturers of valves
There are some super alternatives for EL34’s and 6L6’s all made in the Russia factory. All available in matched pairs and quads. We import directly the following great output valves
Check out the Tung Sol EL34B. We sell these to some well known rock bands. They really make your Marshall sing
The Tung Sol 6L6GC-STR is superb for 6L6 based amps.
The Sovtek 6L6WXT+ is the best of the best of Sovtek production hence the + and pair of these will give more power than most 6L6’s. They are ruggedised too so stand up to the banging around going from gig to gig .
Svetlana Winged C Valves
