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LinLai WE 300B or the LinLai Global Elite Permaloy 300B tubes ?

I presently am using Sophia Electric 300B mesh-plates and find them to sound good in general.  I originally used the Sophia Royal Princess 300B's and really loved the sound, however in my experience, reliability was really poor and for the price, it wasn't any fun trying to get replacements.  I'm getting ready to order new 300B's however would like to know if any of you have had experience with their WE 300B or their flagship Elite Permaloy 300B.
Thanks... John
128x128liquidsound
david_ten
5,480 posts
 
Hopefully Linlai owners will chime in. I'm ordering the Elite 2A3s soon.
sns
3,003 posts
 
I'm interested as well. I presently have Linlai Elite 101D mesh plate and Psvane WE101D for use in my Coincident Statement pre. Linlai build quality appears better than Psvane, thicker glass, interior build looks more substantial, much greater weight.

Sound quality somewhat of a toss up. Linlai a bit more warm, inviting, analog sounding in my system, Psvane somewhat lightweight sounding, more emphasis on upper mids, still airier sound is enticing.
I suspect Linlai may soon displace Psvane as premier Chinese tube manufacturer. It seems former head engineer and other critical team members left Psvane to start up Linlai. Read about this at 6moons.
sns
3,003 posts
 
Forgot to add, I believe I read somewhere Linlai WE300B is exact same as Psvane WE300B. Based on that, and their marketing, I'd expect the Elite to be the better tube.

At this point, the Linlai Elite and EML XLS 300b's are my two top contenders to replace the Shuguang Black Bottle Treasures in my 300B monoblocks. By the way, the Shuguangs are very nice tubes, reliable, rugged and sound quality no complaints. Supposedly in modern sound camp, they do expose even very minute changes in my system, so I'd describe them as very nicely resolving and transparent.  Really don't feel the need to change them out, simply curious as to any sq improvements.

The Elrog 300B would be at the top of my list if not for reliability issues, I think they're on at least 3rd iteration of this tube. Haven't heard about reliability of latest iteration, don't mean to hijack thread, but I'd be interested in hearing others experience with latest iteration.
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