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Are high end 300B valves worth it ?

Ianp

Ianp

pfm Member
I appreciate this can't be answered, only views expressed. One of the EH Gold Grid in the amp I just bought failed though I have a pair of Genalex, which have a high enough ticket themselves. Upwards of this things can get really daft.

Any experiences here ?

GT recommended Emission Labs, though I'm yet to look into these.

Cheers.
 
Yes, WE really are worth the money but after that my preference (some of the ones I've tried) is:

Western Electric (reissues)
Takatsuki
Living Voice (KR)
Psvane WE300B
Psvane 300B-Z (black treasure)
EH gold grid (best budget 300B I've tried)

Haven't tried the Acme but the new Linlai look interesting as they are the ex Psvane staff who went off on their own.

I've tried a few mesh plates but didn't really like any of them so now avoid them.

The EH 300B is much better than the Genalex and I would probably look at the LV KR300B Kevin has for sale at the moment, at £600 a pair they are good value.

https://www.definitiveaudio.co.uk/stuff-list.html
 
Ianp said:
I appreciate this can't be answered, only views expressed. One of the EH Gold Grid in the amp I just bought failed though I have a pair of Genalex, which have a high enough ticket themselves. Upwards of this things can get really daft.

Any experiences here ?

GT recommended Emission Labs, though I'm yet to look into these.

Cheers.
Click to expand...
I had EH in my Atlantic to start with, one of which failed sooner than expected. The Emission Labs that replaced them were a definite step-up in sound quality and have lasted longer.
 
I'm fortunate enough to own a pair of original Western Electric 300B, which I use in my Lampizator Golden Gate DAC. They replaced a pair of Psvane Special Edition 300Bs, which I used for about a year and then before that I had a pair of cheap(ish) Chinese tubes, the name of which escapes me. I've also heard KR Audio 300Bs and had the reissued WE300Bs on demo for a month.

Between these four tubes, there is a significant difference in sound quality, although again this is in a DAC rather than an amp and I have no experience of the differences between tubes in an amp. The effect might be different but it's not subtle in the DAC.

My Western Electrics were a rare find - they came to me with only about half their life left (no idea how you establish this as I've also read that there's no way of knowing when a tube is close to expiration) and therefore were offered at a reasonable price of £1000 where the usual going rate seems to be around £2000-2500. Note that this is for original issue WE300Bs not the 'reissue' WE300Bs, which you can pick up for about £1500 if you're lucky to find a pair.

Much as I love my original WE300Bs and much as they are easily a 'better' sound than even the reissue ones, I would never bring myself to pay the more usual £2000+ asking price a pair; the improvement is useful and appreciable, but the premium over the reissue ones is not something I would pay for.

The reissue tubes, second hand, represent the sweet spot in my opinion, when balancing the sound quality and cost. The Psvane and KR Audio tubes are very close in terms of performance and quality, and can be had for around £900; they are around 85% of what the reissue WE300Bs offer and about 70% of my original WE300Bs.

The cheap Chinese tubes that my DAC came with are easily the best value for money but they do sound quite harsh and lacking in the very qualities that 300B aficionados crave (warmth with a dark velvety sound, rich bass - though often slightly lacking in tautness and control - and lots of openness and transparency), but for the money they are good value.

Of course, in a DAC, I only need two tubes and at the voltages used, they will likely last a lifetime so the VFM question in an amp will be different. Probably the reissue WE300Bs won't be the sweet spot, but the KR/Psvane ones will be (assuming you need four in an amp?)
 
badger748 said:
... "all valves sound the same".
Click to expand...

Having owned and listened to well maybe 15-20 different tube valve amplifiers throughout decades.
Must say those 300B fitted were not to my taste.
Very impressive as a start but very soon I realised no thanks.
No idea of origin valves used.

Clearly the EL84 fitted amps were my favorite.
 
you had EH 300B. i would try to find a NOS pair of svetlana 300B, that used to be the cheapest good sounding 300B, unfortunately not too reliable but you never know.
 
geetee1972 said:
Because they sound good obvs. It's not hard to figure out o_O But if you feel that strongly about it, make me an offer.
Click to expand...
I think it was more that it was a power valve than a signal valve. You would have thought that a designer's first choice would be to find a signal valve that sounded good as all the supporting circuitry for a power valve would cost more as apposed to that for a signal valve. Unless DAC was being sold partly on looks :) :D
 
I remember when Lampizator was a diy site, he used 300B as an output valve in a DAC. And power DHTs can sound good at low signal levels (I would use a 2A3 myself, much cheaper). As for an original WE300B, well that does seem OTT, but the Golden Gate DAC seems to retail north of 15000 euro and looks like a pretty OTT design itself, so why not?
 
no matter what WE 300B we are talking about - none are worth of the money they command these days. as an owner of a WE pair who's waiting to place it on the market at the right moment I have a right to say that. a number of classic tubes such as 2A3, VT4C(211) or even 10Y for small powers are simply inferior. don't let you get caught into merchants traps.
 
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