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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
johnss
582 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.




tooblue
1,951 posts
 
@johnss , glad you came along. Did you read my post just before yours, where I just ordered a pair of the Shuguang WE6SN7 plus tubes for my headphone amp? My tubes in the headphone amp now are the Sylvania 6SN7 chrome domes from the 50s which are quite nice, am wondering about the break in time on the WEs if you could elaborate. Thanks and enjoy the music
johnss
582 posts
 
@tooblue

yes, read your post. Think you will like the WE6SN7s in the Had amp.

I have one of Dennis Had's Inspire amps that runs all octal output tubes (not sure what the HP amp uses).

The Inspire amp one of my favorite sounding amps, just wish it had a bit more power. I run WE 6SN7 in the input, and WE KT88 Plus for the outputs. The 88s give up a few watts to KT150s, but the sonics improvement is well worth the few watts lost.

if your Inspire HP amp has toobe rectifier, you may want to insert the PSVANE 274 HIFI grade rectifier. It peels back another layer of veiling. I used to think there were small to no differences between rectifier tubes, but was wrong on that one.

best regards

decooney OP
2,172 posts
 
@johnss
I owned the Inspire Hot Rod with KT150s, later discovered NOS 6650s and KT88s tested at 2wpc more than my own KT150s, takes ~650/850v plate voltage and larger transformers to run the TS KT150s properly. Running KT150s now in my Quicksilver Mono 120s, and testing the PSVANE 12AU7 / 12AT7s as my signal and driver tubes. Vintage Mullards and these smaller PSVANEs help the KT150s to sound quite unique.

The 6SN7s are for my Cary SLP-98 tube preamp, takes 4 of them. Will def keep the WE6SN7 in mind. Would have to measure the fat bottom portion of the glass just above the base. It’s really tight now at the chassis hole cutout with the TJs. Will share your WE feedback with my other buddy who was two of the DH Inspire amps, one Triode and One PSE amp, and the DH 6SN7 preamp too.

Before these amps i have now, I ran Shuguang BSTRs in a prior EL34 amp, and really liked them a lot. Not surprised at all at your findings, good to know. Thx.
tooblue
1,951 posts
 
I will check and see if I can run that rectifier tube in the Inspire, am running a brown base Brimer in that position at the moment and like it a lot. I also run Quicksilver Mono 120s and run the Psvane Treasure 12AU7 and the Treasure Psvane 12AT7 as signal and driver. enjoy the music
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