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In Reply to: RE: Thanks! Here's wishing someone would try out the PSVANE WE300B posted by Ivan303 on March 13, 2014 at 17:54:18
Have used the Psvane small signal tubes with great success. Bought a pair of the EL84-T series when they were still associated with Shuguang and they sound just awesome. Have a new pair of the 300B grey bottles and they are absolutely magnificent!
They're doing something right as well as continuously improving. I have had mixed results with the never ending quest for NOS of dubious nature. Mathematically, this pool must get smaller and smaller over time, and it has. It is real nice knowing that new tubes are being made to such a high caliber.
Kudos!
Follow Ups:
Which ones? They seem to have a number of differing models/price points.
I'm soon to be rebuilding my 300B mono blocks and it may be time to re-tube after 10+ years.
My 300Bs are the Psvane "T" Series Mark II
Hi Hardy!I'm delighted to hear that your Psvane 300B " grey bottles " tubes are providing you with such wonderful listening. As for myself, I'm ecstatic that these new Psvane " replica " tubes, while admittedly expensive, are actually out performing many of the highly regarded NOS uber-expensive tubes. So much excuses such as: " the art of tube building has died with the original tube manufacturers or " the materials used in the 30s-60's tubes was vastly superior to the materials that are being used in today's tubes " as being the reasons for why tubes being made today were, in many cases, so sonically inferior to the older NOS tubes.
IMHO the two main possible reasons why newly manufactured tubes performed so poorly in comparison to the older NOS tubes ---{ at least up until these last few years }--- was because; a) the Russian and Chinese militaries only required tubes that were reliable and performed well. Sound quality wasn't a concern for either of them. Hence it took some time for their tube manufactures to learn how to make tubes that also sounded good in addition to being reliable & performing well and b) I believe this is the main reason. They wanted to be able to raise the prices of these new " audiophile quality " tubes. Who knows, maybe they're actually doing something really different and more expensive in the process of making these tubes that are even surpassing the highly coveted NOS tubes?
But I really cannot think of what that might be. I believe it was all part of a deliberate plan ---{ step b up above }--- to charge prices that were considerably higher than the prices of the tubes they were previously making. However at the same time they had to be less than the price of the NOS tubes audiophiles dearly coveted. This led to an intentional, but actually unrequired delay, until enough time had passed and they could pretend to have suddenly " discovered " the means to manufacture tubes that equaled or surpassed the sonics of older NOS tubes! Thus in creating new tubes that audiophiles craved, while still expensive, were cheaper than the older NOS tubes they were out performing. So despite being more expensive ---{ giving the Chinese & Russian manufacturers what they want }--- they appeared to be a sonic bargain ---{ giving audiophile/music lovers what they want }--- and in the end made everyone essentially happy!
In the end this is truly all that matters, no? If we as audiophile/music lovers are happy with what we receive for the price we pay! I for one, find these $1430/quad WE845 to be expensive and a sonic bargain at the same time. I know of no $1438 wires, preamp, DAC etc. that could give me the level of sonic improvement these tubes did. I know a $4K tubed preamp didn't!
I'm listening to:
A Paul Simon Songbook by Bill Cunliffe & Friends
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
Full-range/Wide-range Drivers --- Front & Back-Loaded Horns
Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society
Edits: 03/15/14
To be fair, some tubes manufactured in China, Eastern Europe and Russia over the last 10 or so years have been quite OK, even good to excellent.
However, some have been made to a price point and nothing more, especially the various and sundry 'Gold Lion' KT-88 clones made in China. That and microphonic DHT's from China and Russia were and still are quite a drag.
On the 300B front, to my ears the Full Music/TJ tubes were pretty good sounding as well as some of the Eastern European brands like EML (Emission Labs). The WE remakes made in USA about a decade ago worked well for me, as did the early KR's when they first came out.
I suppose I will write a big check soon for the higher priced 'WE' version of PSVANE 300B's. Here's hoping that last a long time, because at those prices once every 10 years is soon enough.
I am thinking about building either the AN integrated or trying the Bottlehead 300B amps, so I would love to know which ones you prefer, and why. TIA!
Right now my choice would be the Bottlehead Paramount 300B. Price wise it wins hands down. It sounds very good for the type of music I play and is well matched to the speakers.
The AN Legend 300B SEP monoblocks are very nice but one of them is sick and I have been having fits troubleshooting the problem. When it was in the line up, it was very impressive and its 17 Watts really added to it. Now, for Pink Floyd or movie soundtracks I fall back to the Bob Latino ST-70 which can hit around 33 Watts.
I am constantly swapping amps around and the AN beasties are heavy! The ST-70 is no slouch either. The Paramounts are the easiest.
Sound quality: I prefer SET amps most of all. I come back to the Paramount 300Bs and my newest favorite is the Bottlehead Stereomour 2A3 which is hooked up to Dave Dlugo's Frugal Horn with a full range Fostex FE126En speaker. Magic! This being said, buying a matched pair of triodes is a lot cheaper than quads...
Seeing from your Inmate Systems page that you have one or two amps that use the 300B. ;-)
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