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PSVANE 12Au7 12At7 12Ax7 "-T MKII" 2020 production run of small signal/driver tubes

Re-testing year 2020 production run of these tubes. Would like to hear from others who’ve re-tried recent production?

>>PSVANE 12Au7 12At7 12Ax7 "-T MKII" small signal/driver tubes made in year 2020"

Background:
After following stories about TJ Full Music’s founder passing, and the son reselling tooling of all of the small signal tubes to PSVANE, and recent luck over the past year with TJ 6SN7 tubes for my preamp, I thought I’d give the new PSVANE small tubes a retry. Checking to see if any designs or manufacturing goodness made it over to PSVANE yet from TJ. Also, took advantage of an opportunity to buy these direct from a major overseas distributor, direct. So far so good. Comparing to other known vintage tubes. Also following AudioNote’s recent use of PSVANE tubes in their preamplifiers, amplifiers, integrated amplifiers.

GOAL:
Find something "close enough" and hoard away all my vintage tubes. An improvement is always great too.  

COMPARISONS to vintage, others:
-Currently comparing to my vintage stash of 1960s Mullard "Blackburn", Tungsram, RCA, Sylvania, others.
-Also comparing to prior 2012 versions of these same PSVANE tubes made over eight years ago.
-No need to compare to new re-issue Mullard or JJ or other. Seems these new PSVANE are on a different level.

INITIAL Impression first 20 hours:
-a tad harsh and grainy
-midrange is obvious
-top end not rolled off
-sound stage front row, initially
-decent, interesting

AFTER 72 hours burn-in:
-smoothing out nicely, not there yet, close
-sound stage dropping back to mid-hall
-texture starting to come in
-nice midrange, top end smoothing out more
-tone of piano and guitars shaping up nicely
-Nice, haven’t pulled them yet!

APPLICATION
My mono tube amplifiers
(2) Input tubes; 12AU7s
(2) driver tubes; 12AT7s
Friend testing in his preamp
(2) Input, preamp: 12AX7s

------------------------------
REQUEST:
Would like to hear from others who’ve re-tried recent 2020 production of PSVANE 12AU7 or 12AT7 or 12AX7 ?
What are you hearing, are they better than prior PSVANE versions you tried years ago? Similar findings or ???





decooney
milpai's avatar
milpai
2,496 posts
 
@decooney ,I recently purchased a pair of the Psvane 12AU7 from Viva tubes. They easily bested the Genalex Gold Lions and the Mullards that came with my preamp. For the first 10-20 hours they sounded hooty. But after a few days, these started to open up and it did take few more hours to show their real character. I am amazed by their "correctness" and rich sound with details on both ends. I agree with your description of the soundstage. Yes these are on a completely different level than the new Mullards or Genalex. I have no experience with NOS tubes.
oldhvymec
5,101 posts
 
GOAL:
Find something "close enough" and hoard away all my vintage tubes. An improvement is always great too.
    
What constitutes a hoard? LOL I might already be there..
6-800 signals 12 volt stuff, 12BH,BZ,AT,AU,AX.AZ, that I've gone through.
   
There are still a lot of great vintage, valves out there. 
I've found "tube lots" of 12at7 (180), and 12au7 (120). Sometimes 12ax7, or 12az7s. Even 12BH7s.  I found one with  65, 12az7 GEs, 18, 12ax7 GEs, 10 RCAs and over 20 Tellies..That were good.. All over 80% up to 110%
Big fan of GE greens, and long smooth grays, for 12au7 and 12at7.

12ax7s, Mullard, RCA, Tellies, Amperex, Some Sylvanias, Russian Solvex NOS

You know, I don't think I have more than 800.00 usd in signal valves, and enough to voice 45 or 50 units, in 2x2x2 of 12at, au, and ax or z

What's that 300 years or so.. 

All behind buying in lots.. Two great garage sales.

I'm lucky, I guess 

Regards..


decooney OP
2,352 posts
 
@earthtones, @milpai
Thanks, appreciate the feedback.

@oldhvymec,
Lucky you. Good finds. That’s the way to buy ’em for sure! fwiw, recently I tested 20 different pairs of vintage signal and drivers in my amps alone, most were okay - few were truly great. Not until I tried my 1st and 2nd pair of (curve tracer tester) identically matched triodes in a great vintage pair of Mullard’s did I know what my amps could really do. Would be fun to find the creme of the crop in your collection and try those! Gotta say, these recent PSVANEs are putting my best vintage to task right now. I won’t say they are better than my best vintage but they are a really fun and interesting "different" sound. Hearing a little more of everything.   Kinda surprised.
oldhvymec
5,101 posts
 
There are a LOT of good valves now. It's always the same though.. QC. Russian, Chinese, Turkish, India, all have great valves through the years, and then... BAMB.. 1-3 years of crap.. then good for 3 then, you know..

Next door in the Scandinavian countries, there's usually not a quality issue, just a cost issue. WAY to expensive, same with Germanic states. Both have high QC, along with HIGH prices,

Valves made in the Americas, Brazil, Canada, US, Chile, Mexico, the BAD runs were 3-4 months, NOT years..

GE is really good for old stock, now. There is a lot of it to, just a ton.  Got to be a little careful, they were made EVERYWHERE too.. Good, Bad and the UGLY..

I'll pick up a set of  PSVANEs 12ax7 for MY C20.. it is a taster of good valves. Samra Touch, C20.. Oh yea.. Loves GREAT valves, and pays HIGH sonic dividends. One of the best..

I look to Amprex, Volvo, Mazda, for the real exotics.. that special valve for concert nights.. Flamingo, Bali, Old Country Western, Latin-smooth jazz, and Salsa (Tropicalis). The neighbors start coming over.. get a pretty cool blend of tunes.. as you can see...

PSVANEs might need to add a set of 4 and 6 12ax7..

I like the 12 volt stuff, not a big 6 volt guy.. all the rage though.. 6SN7, everybody uses that... WHY? Runs HOT... I have to admit the pres that use them, do sound good, Carys  and Freya + (pretty good) I'm use to the 12s simple.

Regards
johnss
614 posts
 
Will throw in my 2 cents since I have dumped a lot of coin in TJ Full Music,  PSVANE and Shuguang pre and power tubes.

When TJ Full Music valve were first released, they were one of the first Chinese tube brands to really look at construction materials inside the valve and how these materials affected the sound.

Shuguang and PSVANE have taken that concept much further and looked into more materials and run many experiments on sonic qualities.  The latest Shuguang Western Electric KT88 Plus power tubes are now my favorite power tube, very organic sounding without being overly warm....
with regards to input 12A_ _ series, the PSVANE T-IIs were my favorite until Shuguang released their black carbon 12A__ _ series, Both are really good but the nod goes to the shuguang black carbons if I had to choose. 
PSVANE recently released their own black carbon under the Cossor Brand name. Have not tried them so can't offer any input.

as far as reliability, have had no issues with the input tubes.

With power tubes have had a couple of KT88s fail on me. Would say the reliability may not be quite as good as the Russian Gold Lion KT88, but the for the improvement in sonics, am willing to buy a few spares on the power tubes to get that sound.

The Chinese are also quite proud of their tubes and charge more than similar Russian made valves, so no deals here. Expect to pay considerably more for the Shuguang WE KT88 plus or the latest PSVANE Gray glass power tubes, than you would for a quad set of GL KT88s.







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