Psvane 300-B Tubes ? ? ?


Does anyone out there have any experience with Psvane 300-B MKII or their WE300-B Replica tubes ?  

I found the best sound from initially the Sophia Princess mesh-plate 300-B's, then their Royal Princess 300-B's however I'm definitely NOT happy with their reliability, especially the Royal Princess !  
I had a mesh-plate from new have a glowing spot on the mesh-plate, and they told me it was from sitting on the shelf for over a year !  REALLY ! ? ! ?  And I had two Royal Princess tubes go out with less than 600-hours on them, unfortunately well-past 1-yr. warranty.  Left a bad taste...  I'm NOT going back...  
I've tried EH gold-grid 300-B's, Gold-Lion's, JJ's...  All sound somewhat different but the Sophias sounded the best, however in my experience, reliability is questionable...  Thanks...  John  
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Hi 1markr,
Thanks for the very informative review of these 2 tubes. I've heard nothing but good things about the Psvane W.E. and have been curious regarding them. Based on your descriptions of the W.E. It seems very similar to the Takatsuki.  As I mentioned before the W.E. 101D (which I own) and their 845 are excellent so your findings aren't surprising at all.  

I agree with your assessment that both are top tier 300b tubes and ultimate choice will be determined by individual taste and desired sound. I'll likely try the Psvane W.E at some point in the future. The EML XLS is an example of the modern European 300b sound and the Psvane representative of the classic vintage Western Electric 300b sound.  I suspect that I'd like the Psvane even though I didn't like the reissue Western Electric 300b I tried several years ago. 
Charles 
Charles1dad,
My system is presently also using the Coincident line stage that uses the 101D's.  Is there a dealer here in the U.S. for the Psvane WE 101D replica?  My experience with Grant in Canada was very bad.  After paying extra for tubes that were supposed to be within 10% tolerance,  they sent most of them within 25% and none within ten.  All tubes were tested on my Hickok 539A and George Kay small signal tube tester.  Some of the small signal tubes were also very microphonic, and one of them actually showed a short in the Hickok.

That order was placed around ten years ago, and if I recall correctly it was dropped shipped from China.  Grant did allow me to send the order to them in Canada for credit, because they did not want to replace the order with the in tolerance tubes that I payed for.  They did return credit to my card with the stipulation that I did not ever order from them again, so I was only out shipping cost to Canada. 

My only other experience with Psvane tubes was directly from China.  One of the tubes was DOA, and they said to return it for replacement.  Shipping that one tube back to China cost over twenty dollars by US mail and close to ninety dollars by a shipping company.  So I sent it US mail but they don't track mail going to China, and likewise the Chinese seller did not acknowledge ever receiving it.

Evidently ten years ago Grant was cutting shipping costs by trusting the Chinese to actually test the tubes being drop shipped to me.  It would be nice to know of a US company that sells the WE 101D replica.






Hi Vv32bl,
Sorry about your bad experience with Grant Fidelity.  My encounters with them have been good. I'm unaware of any current American source for Psvane tubes.
Charles