Newproduction power tubes: Reliablity

@ mozartfan, My new buick encore, is made in (China). This has been the world plan, 50+ years now. HELLO! :-)

Not doubting your word,, just had to google that fact,, yep says made in china,, HOWEVER,,not designed in china,, 
What I am saying the chinese can only copy things,, they can not invent ideas, They steal, The Buick is designed in the USA, built by cheap labor and robots in china,, Huge dif from  a  tube designed/built in china and a  tube designed/built in russia, China copies the russians, 
Russia makes the superior 88, which is the only  push lull i consider worth owning. 
The 90 is nice, but no cigar.

Aside from that, just the other day I read about some Chinese car company that is planning to build a car manufacturing plant in the U.S.A. I forgot details.

Well with the Chinese Flu shutting down businesses across the USA, there will be plenty of opportunity for chinese tycoons to come snap up property on the cheap and move operations here, as the USA will soon have a
 huge labor market, ready and willing to work at whatever wages offered.
China is headed downwards, has no future, The USA is the only country that will surive the chinese flu
shut down
So makes sense to buy up cheap properties and move business here.
Cheap labor + shipping + warehouse etc etc = same as making here with cheap USA labor.
I am not interested in any chinese 88 tube, no matter how fancy the labeling. 

@mozartfan, This is quite the post. I have bought dozens and dozens and dozens of both Russian and Chinese made power tubes (mostly KT88s, but also many others). China has come a long way in their power tube reliability issues of previous years. Today's Chinese made tubes are much better than those of 5-10 + years ago.  Would still say the Russians are better for long term reliability. Have had to replace fewer of them in my amps over months of use.

As for sonic qualities, the best sounding most organic output tube is the Shuguang Western electric Plus series (WEKT88; same series available in  6CA7. 300B, 845,. etc); This tube family blows everything else into the weeds sonically.

But the reliability on these shuguang tubes is not as good as the  Russian made tubes (GL KT88 for example). So if you are going to run Chinese tubes, need to stock up on lots of spares, but you will get a nice sonic improvement by doing so. 

The Shuguang factory is in the process of moving so only real option for chinese tubes today is PSVANE, which are also good. Check out their KT88 gray glass tubes.  

From the Russian side, the GL KT8s are my favorite. do not sound as natural as the Chinese Shuguang WE varieties but are more reliable, and last longer.

For input tubes, really hard to be the PSVANE T-II 12A_7 series. They are reliable and sound exceptionally good.

for 6SN7 types, the Shuguang WE variety tops all, even NOS types.

best

@johnss

good post

what amp(s) are you running your kt88s on? curious to know... i have a number of kt88 amps - several audio research and a primaluna - hearing the different sound profiles of the various compatible tubes is fun to experience

as for mozartfan... you are being kind... i would think even mozart himself would reject some of the close minded and narrow thinking expressed  :(