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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
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
569 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.







decooney OP
1,964 posts
 
@johnss 
Keep us posted on the Cossor, if you take that route, Johnss.  A tube research nut friend was seriously looking at those a few weeks back to compare to his own vintage collection. Also, I've been running quads of TJ FM 6SN7 tubes in my preamp for a year solid. Sound real nice compared to some of my own US vintage N7s. I see a Black Cossor 6SN7 in a light bulb looking shape. Thanks for the backstory too.      
tooblue
1,922 posts
 
I just ordered a sextet of the Psvane Cossor 12AU7 tubes for a phono stage so was quite interested in this conversation. I have 5 other matched pairs of Psvane 12A 7 premium tubes running in four separate pieces of gear with really good results and have a matched quad of the Pavane 12AX7LS black bottle tubes from Grant Fidelity in another phone stage that are outstanding. All these tubes mentioned are at least a year old with the bulk of them 4 to 5 years old so can't compare to older versus new. I also have on order a pair of Shuguang WE6SN7plus for a Dennise Had Inspire headphone amp, you might say I have become a big fan of the Psvane and Shuguang brands and they have become my go to brands. Enjoy the music
johnss
569 posts
 
@decooney

I have the TJ 6SN7s, they are nice tubes. If your budget can swing it, opt for the Shuguang WE6SN7 Plus coke bottles with the red bases. They are considerably fatter (much larger glass envelope) than a typical 6sn7, so may need to measure for mechanical fit or clearance, but if they have the clearance, they will audibly outperform the TJ valves as well as sylvania chrome tops, and the famous red base RCAs .
so far have had no reliability issues with these input valves.




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