Hi charles1dad,
Boy,it's been a while since I've gone on to Audiogon and checked any discussions as I've been busy listening to the beautiful sounds of my Coincident system every free moment I have had between work and family.
Thanks for the shout out about premature tube failures.
The only tubes that I've had a real problem with have been the Sophia Royal Princess tubes. My first pair had a tube blow after four months and it was good that I had the one-year warranty as Sophia promptly replaced that tube . About three weeks later the other tube blew Sophia also replace that too however told me they werent willing to replace any future tube failures again.even if it is still during the one year warranty period ???
After about another three months there was a dramatic sonic degradation and the tubes were obviously dying. So liking their sound in my system , I foolishly bought another pair of Sophia Royal Princess tubes in the hope that they would last longer. No such luck. As a matter of fact one of the tubes blew on start up taking with it some amplifier components including resistors and voltage regulators. This also occurred after about four months. Sophia replaced both of them ss well and I then sold them on Audiogon.
Interestingly enough before I even purchased my first pair Israel had advised me any 300 B is safe to use as a replacement tube except for certain KR tubes and warned definitely not to use Sophia tubes. I guess I am foolish and lucky that. I didn't have earlier and worse damage happen to my amplifiers which would really have been a disaster.
Israel's explanation which is logical and should make sense to all, was that modern amps that sound dramatically superior to tube amplifiers of 20 to 30 years ago are designed differently! Including voltage plate differences. The Sophia's and a few other tube designers are using outdated parameters to make so-called modern tubes for modern amplifiers. So the incompatibility is pretty obvious and the resulting tube failure should not be a surprise. Not everything is compatible with everything and at no time do I personally assume it is amplifier design issue or limitation, rather an incompatibility issue. ( for if there is a design issue with these amplifiers they're the best dam design issues I have ever had the pleasure of listening to ! LOL]
I also had a hiccup with my Elrogs for the exact same reason as other people have reported and discussed above. I must say that I was thoroughly impressed with how George Lenz took care of any issues and promptly replaced my tubes with a newer version. It is so refreshing to see such a stand up guy and professional attitude in the audio industry. Kudos to George! After receiving my new pair of Elrogs I decided to sell them as I was already scarred by my previous experiences with the Sophia failures.
I am currently using the latest version of the re released Shuguang Black bottle 300 B tubes. The price to performance ratio is outstanding. I also enjoy my AVVT 32b SL tubes which are in a very special category. I am contemplating getting the current release of Psvane W.E. Replicas which are supposed to sound outstanding as well as the EML XLS which we all know is a wonderful tube. By the way Charles ,have you tried the new CST statement power cords yet? As you know I've had them for a long time and thought the improvement in sound quality was extraordinary at the price. And when you compare to other brand-name cables they are a mere fraction of the cost of most power cords.
However recently I upgraded my speaker cables and interconnects to the new Statement series from Extreme Shotgun series.
Wow wow wow The difference was like changing an amplifier . Yup , not subtle by any stretch. The transparency immediacy naturalness and harmonic completeness was eery and uncanny. I have never ever heard CST gear sound better. These are already qualities that they excelled at , but the cables really took it to the next level I was shocked ,The jaw dropping kind of shock "they" talk about. Unquestionably and absolutely highly recommended.
Cheers
David
