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Elrog 300b's for sale. Your thoughts?

I noticed this morning an add for the new Elrogs.   I and many others on the forum ran the experiment when the Elrogs were initially launched.   We found the tubes to be superb sonically, but woefully unreliable.  In fact, the early failure rate on those tubes was apparently 100%.  I and others received replacements that were hand selected for suitability in our particular amps.  In fact one individual had 3 pairs fail.  In my case, I went so far as to purchase a PS audio power plant, having been assured that limiting incoming voltage to 115V would ensure reasonable lifetime for the Elrogs.  Two days ago, one of my replacements failed, after having been nursed along carefully.  Honestly, I doubt the tubes had 600 hours on them.  So the Psvane T1s went back in and I began the period of mourning for my deceased Elrogs.  This morning I awake to the siren song of an ad from a reputable dealer who is announcing availability of the new improved Elrogs with a 1 year warranty.   My initial reaction was, "I don't think so.  Someone else can run the $1200 experiment.  Burned once and lesson learned."  But here is the problem.  If all of Elrogs former customers take that approach, the new Elrog will also fail even if the tubes are good for 10000 hours, simply because no one will buy them.    The tubes are so good that it would be a tragedy if that happened.  So the question to all of you who have already been down this road is this?  What would it take for you to give these tubes a try again?
brownsfan
brf
1,715 posts
 
WE 300B 5-year warranty is based on a declining scale in which WE will provide a replacement for defective tubes based on a percentage of the current retail price.

  • Year 1 – Free of Charge
  • Year 2 – 20% of then current Retail price;
  • Year 3 – 40% of then current Retail price;
  • Year 4 – 60% of then current Retail price;
  • Year 5 – 80% of then current Retail price;

ianderson
92 posts
 
Now three years later, I’m curious, has the Elrog reliability been proven?
vinylsavor
16 posts
 
Actually it is 5 years later and the Elrog tubes are being manufactured under my lead longer now than they had been in the old company. We would not have survived 5 years if we had continued to have the problems of the old company

Best regards

Thomas
brownsfan OP
1,508 posts
 
  Vinylsavior, thanks for the update.  I am very happy to hear that the issues have been addressed.  Are you aware of anyone using the newer Elrogs in the Coincident Frankensteins?  The old Elrogs were just glorious in those amps, just could not get an acceptable lifetime in those amps. 
vinylsavor
16 posts
 
brownsfan, Since we are selling mostly through distributors outside Europe, I am not able to track in which amplifiers the tubes are used which are sold through these channels. In Europe I am not aware of Frankenstein users. I did have one customer who uses my preamps who also owned a Frankenstein. I sent him ER300Bs a few years ago. But never heard back and lost contact.

The ER300B was only manufactured for a year and a half under the old company. They brought out the tube too early which caused their bankrucy. 

I am producing the tube for 5 years now and have sold many tubes in the meantime
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