My Atmasphere monoblocks originally used 12AT7s as input tubes, which means they were responsible for most of the voltage gain across the whole circuit. At that time, I purchased a wide variety of different brands of 12AT7, to determine which sounded the best. The first finding is that it made a considerable difference; different 12AT7s sounded different. The surprising finding is that a Chinese variant sounded the best. In those days, there was a tube vendor operating in the UK called "Billington". Their top of the line 12AT7 was called "Billington Gold", made in China. I compared it to Mullard, GE, Sylvania, and some other NOS types. Billington Gold were the best sounding by far. The bad news is that they had a short life span in the amplifier circuit. This saga played out in the late 90s or early 2000s. I think Billington the vendor is no more.
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@rivinyl Ray Tubes are manufactured by Psvane in China. From Ray: We partner with various contract manufacturers to produce our tubes. In the case of the RESERVE KT88 tubes, it's indeed PSVANE that's handling production for us. While our KT88 RESERVE may share some visual resemblance with PSVANE's own products, our tubes are specifically designed to our own bespoke specifications, quality standards, and rigorous production processes. We maintain strict oversight through detailed quality control measures, which we outline in our QC-focused blog post here: https://raytubes.com/blogs/news/ray-tubes-1-year-warranty-quality-control The Ray Tube KT88 Reserve looks to be identical to the Psvane Art Series Mklll KT88. I don't know what differentiates the two tubes, but the Ray Tube KT88 Reserve is double the price. As for their one year warranty, Psvane offers this on all their tubes, so it would appear they are the ones actually standing behind the product. Cheers.
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