Elrog 300b vs we300b

Well, here we go again, one gets good results with particular tube another not. I couldn't stand KR 845 in Art Audio Carissa Signature I was running at time, sterile, clinical. It also suffered failure, blew resistors in amp.  Various Chinese 845 tubes have been my choice since, both for AA and now Coincident Turbo 845. You should also know Art Audio stopped recommending KR at some point when I owned AA due to other failures. EML only Eastern European tube manufacturer I feel confident about, I've seen too many failures from others, EAT I have no opinion here.

I've not yet tried Acme in Coincident as drivers, should be interesting.

Takatsuki up around $1600 as well, I saw over $2k on one site lately.

My two go-to tubes on the Wavac EC300b are Takatsuki and EAT, the former for string quartetts and Clapton Unplugged, the latter for Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries and Highway to Hell. As mentioned elsewhere I use TUNGSOL KT66s as driver tubes with the Takatsukis whereas the EATs perform best with Svetlana Winged-Cs.

Thanks so much for calling me out for clarification, charles1dad, and do excuse me - the KR tubes I was referring to were NOS mid90s 300B I bought for about USD800 about a year ago, no where near 'a fraction' of the EMLs, but still a lot cheaper than the takatsukis, WEs, and elrogs - they are a truly wonderful 300B for what they cost last year.

@kevn 

No problem. As @sns pointed out, there's no 'right' tube that is going to satisfy everyone. As I wrote earlier, I've used  some  excellent 300bs. For my particular amplifier/audio system and ears the EML XLS has been ideal  for me.

Charles

Can the tube experts and aficionados comment? Might be relevant...

From a thread resurrected by @mozartfan circa 2003 and posted by @clueless 

"My limited experience so far is that drivers actually contribute a stronger sonic signature than the output tubes, which are pretty transparent if driven by a low enough source impedance and low distortion.  Arthur Loesch tracked me down at the CES a few years ago, and as we chatted and toured the rooms at the Alexis Park, he mentioned that most DHT's sound alike - if driven by a low enough source impedance and a powerful driver with *lots* of current. It's when they are driven by feeble 5-8mA driver tubes that the characteristic 45, 2A3, 300B, or 845 signature appears. In other words, you'll get loads of that 300B sound if all you're using is an RC-coupled 6SN7."
-  end quote Lynn Olson