Anyone try modern 6sn7 Shuguang WE type vs NOS RCA,Ken Rad


I just bought a KT-88 amp that uses 6sn7’s and the matching preamp uses the 6sn7 tube also. It came with kt88 Shuguang WE plus and all 6sn7’s in the amp and preamp both came with the same Shuguang WE plus.
 

I have a huge stash of old 6sn7’s Ken Rads vt231, gray glass rca, Sylvania vt231 and many others. I am going to pull them out this week and see what these new production tubes can do.

 

I’ve never used new production signal tubes. To be honest the Shuguang sound pretty good but have never compared them to anything. 

 

What are your views on these new tubes are they even close or as good or even better? Are they cheap and will go up in smoke, thanks for any insight.

paulcreed

I let Ken Rads run a couple days they have come back to life from being dormant all these years. Ken Rad is more relaxed compared to the Shuguang. RCA more relaxed than Ken Rad. I may need to put Shuguang back in to see if memory is right but seem Ken Rad has more weight/body on instruments very natural highs.
 

Again memory may be off but Shuguang may have more solid state highs but I need to try them again. Maybe brighter, thinner, cleaner and faster, maybe lose a little tube magic, but not in a bad way. I play jazz and have a lot of new and old hand hammered ride cymbals and I did notice the Shuguang can make a heavy ride cymbal sound very realistic with weight, like you are there sound. That was the first thing that impressed me with the Shuguang for a modern tube. It’s a toss up between all three. They all do good for what they are and have there place. For an all rounder the Ken Rad is nice. The Shuguang has a more modern sound if my memory is correct. I’m going to put Shuguang back in this weekend and see what happens. I’m just going to enjoy Ken Rads for a while. Then I’m going to try Sylvania vt-231’s and pick one and leave it in for a while.

BEWARE-I spent $750 on 4 Psvane 6SN7GT Globes. All 4 were microphonic!

I first used them in my Atma-Sphere M-60 amps. No problem until I moved them to my A-S MP-1 preamp. I couldn’t believe that my super duper globes could be the cause of LOUD noise but finally traced the noise down to all 4.

@mglik 

The MP-1 preamp is probably so revealing that you need to use noise-tested tubes. 

I’ve never signed up for Ali Express. I don’t like the idea of a Chinese based company having my personal info.

But, this is interesting:

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/33048765598.html?trace=wwwdetail2mobilesitedetail

 

My Don Sachs preamp uses four 6sn7s. Don supplies them with Shuguang Treasure or WE6sn7plus tubes.  He swears by them.  On his website he describes the many 'holy grail' 6sn7s that he owns and then goes on to explain that the Shuguangs walk away from them all.  That's quite a statement. In my experience, they are excellent tubes. I still have the original tubes supplied with my preamp and have gone through more than 2000 hours on them an counting with not a hitch.