Elrog 300b vs we300b

@charles1dad Well said thanks.

@gsm18439  Ya I was curious about that, since many of them look almost identical. Something about the 'hanging filament' ?

My guss is use of better materials quality,  much higher standard of construction and attention to detail. My EML XLS is heavier than most 300b tubes. It just looks and actually feels better built. Ultra reliability and very extended tube life longevity. 

Charles 

Yes, materials and design. Over the past few months I've experienced four different 101D tubes in my Coincident Statement MkII pre, one mesh plate, three solid plate, mesh plate and one solid plate use a bit of gold plating in tube structure,  one lower cost, three much higher cost. The three higher cost tubes each have special qualities I can prefer at any point in time or for particular types of music. My experience with 101 replicates what I hear from many reviews of 300B's over many years.

The other major thing I hear with premium tubes is color, perhaps one could say character. Cheap tubes sound bleached out in comparison, this is something I never noticed until moving to the premium tubes, immediately noticeable just like the added resolution.

One other aspect of differentiation is durability, the only two premium 300b's I've yet to see a single failure are the EML XLS and WE. Now, as to whether tube or amplifier running excessive plate voltages at fault, I can't say. I've seen Psvane Acme failures, I believe every single failure has been with Line Magnetic amps. Was this early Acme production or Line Magnetic running them to hard? I've seen failures from all the others as well, exceptions pointed out above. Elrog has also had many failures, Thomas claims to have solved issues, may be true, haven't seen a failure lately? Linlai Elite has had some recent issues, I've heard issues resolved. I guess point of all this is, tube manufacturers constantly changing and refining in order to maintain presence in marketplace, the tube you purchase today may not be the same tube you would have purchased the month prior.

The sleeper in performance terms is EAT: very solid construction, punchy bass, extended treble and deep soundstage once broken in (ca 200h)

@antigrunge2 What have you compared the EAT to ?