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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
decooney OP
1,964 posts
 
@johnss 
...I have one other amp that can run the 150s but use the WE KT88s in it as well... 
On that note, a friend has a used Jolida amp he acquired with KT150s. The amp was originally designed for KT88s, not KT150s. Removed the KT150s and re-installed some PSVANE CV181s, and it sounded much better. The amps lacked transformers and was 300v under required plate voltage to run KT150s properly. My Mono 120s are designed only to run KT150s, so it does matter what you plug the KT150s into, for sure - or they are just a waste of $. In the right amp, they are really good. 
decooney OP
1,964 posts
 
No sugar coating.  

One thing I'm learning about these small PSVANE tubes is they do seem to let the top end frequencies through a bit more (more than some vintage tubes do) and its more noticeable with more transparent interconnect cables, for sure. They are not bright, just a little more vivid in some ways.  Bass is good, full, controlled, not slow or mushy.  

If the recording you are listening to is good, the goodness comes through nicely.  If the recording is bad, the baby PSVANEs are just passing it through, no added rounding nor leading edge filtering going on.  Also noticed the sound stage is a little bigger with these PSVANE 12AU7, 12AT7 than my best vintage "Blackburn" Mullard's.  It's nice how they do sort of have their own signature top-to bottom. I noticed Guitars are not overly lush, nice and clean, maybe more accurate in some ways - but not overly edgy or harsh or grainy in any way. Clear with a tad of glistening texture on strings is how I keep thinking it sounds now. Perhaps its a surprise how some of the subtle details come through.   

Will they fully replace my best vintage, no. Are they close, or better in some ways, yes. 95% there, yeah, maybe. They are not a compromise really.  Have not pulled them yet! 

Not sure if that's what some of you already concluded. Thanks for feedback and contributions to this thread.  :)  
audioman58's avatar
audioman58
4,129 posts
 
The latest psvane 12ax7 ,12au 7 ,is their Art series which is a upgrade to their Mk-2 series using better materials  a very well balanced tube. Viva tubes seems very dependable decent warranty and  matches them  before shipping.
tooblue
1,922 posts
 
@audioman58 , I made a reference on this thread a few months ago that I had ordered a sextet of the Psvane Cossor 12AU7 tubes, well they never arrived, got lost, so I ordered a matched octet of Psvane 12AU7-S from Viva and installed them in my phono, with about 200 hours on them they sound great and am looking to replace 3 more pairs in other pieces of gear I own. Enjoy the music
audioquest4life
769 posts
 
I have been using the PSvane 12AU7 for years in my Octave Jubilee preamp. I had previously been using many NOS ECC82 variants such a as those from RFT, Siemens, and GEs. I had on occasion lost an NOS tube in my preamp, which caused other problems, fuses blown, down time, aNd angst that my electronics were going to get fried the next time an NOS tube blows. Not to say that it can’t happen with new tubes, because it can, but, I feel that age of tubes may increase the odds of a tube dying.

The Psvane 12AU7s I used were, and still are, the MKII versions, the latest set bought in 2014, they sound great. I bought 12 matched sets at the time, and some in reserve still. Nothing overhyped or extremely accentuated. They do have more bite at the top as mentioned when new, but after some hours, it seems like the music is just more filled in terms of presence and better resolution. This for me translates to better lifelike experiences when reproducing music as texture and detail retrieval is right at the top of anything else I have ever heard with regards to the variant of 12AU7 tubes.

I want to evaluate the new black carbon versions. The story about the factory changes is very interesting.
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