2. amps-preamps
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Tube Break-In sound character change

I just spent over $600 on a set (4) of Sophia Electric 300B 2.5v Princess tubes for my Wright Sound Mono 10 amps, but so far much prefer the sound of the much cheaper EH Gold 2A3 tubes. These Sophia tubes have gotten very good reviews on these pages. The question is: how much does the sound character change as the tubes break in? I have only about 4 hours on the new tubes, but so far they sound a little tizzy and less rich than the EH tubes. I'm surprised, because I thought than right out of the box they should have the EH tubes beat. Will they change just a bit, or fairly dramatically with use?
smeyers
strapper211
119 posts
 
Hi,I changed the driver tubes on my cat amps to 40 year old nos amperex and telefunken,they sound a tad forward and aggressive after 20 hours.Will they break-in and how long will it take.

Thanks
washington_highend_audio
41 posts
 
Note: EH 2A3 and other popular Russian 2A3 plus the current bigger sized Shuguang 2A3 are all 300B/2.5V by design. Cary amplifier and many other current 2A3 amplifier makers are deisgning the amplifier at much higher plate voltage than a typical RCA standard 2A3 is calling for.

The majority of today's 2A3(actually 300b/2.5V)have already changed the landscape of 2A3 for good. RCA 2A3 is of smaller power thus becoming less less due to the supply of real RCA format 2A3. Sophia Electric is making a real RCA formate 2A3 mesh plate, however, the demand for it, is less than its more power 300b/2.5 cousin for most 2A3 users. The lack of affordable good sounding speakers and speaker drivers are the reasons.
rodman99999
6,185 posts
 
Though this article regards the actual 300B; you'll probably find the info on burn-in helpful: (http://www.stereophile.com/features/229/index2.html)
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