OK, PSVane WEs arrived in good shape. They were packed well in foam but not in individual boxes...side by side in foam compartments inside the shipping box itself, but well protected. They look a little different from each other--the glass tip on the top of one is longer than the other, and the insides of one seem tilted a tad to one side. In that regard they have a "hand made" look & feel about them, which I'm not sure is a good thing in tubes, but what do I know. I bought the "top 10%" versions for an extra $100, btw. I can't actually tell if they shipped from China direct or from Canada--the return address is Canada, but that doesn't mean anything I guess. They took about 10 days to arrive from when I ordered them.
In short summary, they are very, very good after just 4 hours or so of warm up/burn in. Hopefully they will get even better. Tom, they were a lot cleaner and more nuanced than the Suguang A's I thought I liked in the Melody 845 AN the best. I have no desire to put the A's back in at all.
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To ensure I had a fair comparison, I first spent 30 minutes with the Shuguang A's, as mentioned (this is not my main system so I don't do much critical listening on this system), and while they sounded good, they were a tad "nearfield monitor" sounding, even after 30 minutes of warm up. A lot of in-your-face, front-row feel. Not much depth to the soundstage at all. I feel like I was hearing a little roll-off up top, although the bass was strong and solid and midrange was very good. I also felt like on certain tracks the vocals were a little "hands cupped over mouth" to a degree. My speakers are modded (new cross-overs) Altec Lansing Valencias from 1970, but I had not felt I was hearing the horns previously and I've had these speakers for about 4 years in almost constant use in some system or another, so I'm pretty familiar with them. That cupped voice thing, again on some tracks, wasn't something I attribute to the speakers.
The PSVane WEs had a lot more front-to-back depth right out of the box. 4 hours later it's way more nuanced...but still dynamic, and really smooth and lovely. Tonally it sounds like I would expect in all registers. No cupped voicing. Cymbals don't sound rolled-off at all. The bass is tight with good decay on kick drums, etc. I would say a slight bit "laid back" vs. the Shuguang A's, in this amp anyway, but still with very good PRAT, and relaxed in the right areas to make it very musical and emotionally pleasing. They sound neutral to my ears. Again, very musical and organic like you want. No fatigue.
I think these sound really close to how I remember the Elrogs sound in my Thoress 845 monoblocks--while maybe not exactly as good, that's a big compliment from my end, given this amp is an integrated and about 1/2 the price of the the Thoress monoblocks alone without a $15K preamp, and the tubes also less than half of the Elrogs. I don't want to overstate how good they are, but I'm very pleased so far. I will listen to this system a lot more now.
I may bring the Elrogs back from storage at the new house and do a side-by-side on the Melody again.
