300 B Shuguang Black Bottle tubes

My BT 300B-Z do not sound good yet. In fact, my old EH Gold Pins deliver all of the things that I like about tube amplification. The BTs sound way too forward, brassy at anything above 'normal' volume, kind of SS overall. I put the EHs back and pleasure has returned. I am going to try the BTs again (and give them more time), of course, as I didn't buy a quad of these things to resell them. My surprise is that I have not read any other acccounts of these tubes sounding this bad right out of the box.

My amplifier came standard with the EH Golden Grid 300b. When I replaced them with the Shuguang BT they were far better(right out the box!)than the EH tubes. Sometimes I wonder how much of these different impressions are due to the amplifier used and or system.

Charles1dad,

Here's something I pasted from AA. The author is Chris O. It could explain a lot.

"You really have to watch out when you start swapping 300b or other big filament power tubes. The current draw on the heater for one tube brand or type or batch may be very different. Plugging several different brands of tubes (EH, TJ, KR) into a given amp showed each had very different voltage on the heater and bias points for the voltage and current supplied by the amp. In particular, the TJs sounded bad with 5.7 volts on the heater, much better at 5 volts exactly. Also, at the higher voltage they would have had a short life. The EH with the same supply were 5.2 volts.

Don't slam tubes (or anything else) if you don't know how you are using them. Most of the time, using the tube within the manufacturers specifications and optimizing a tubes operational points based on listening makes them a lot better."

Onemug,
I find that concept easy to accept, as opinions and experiences are all over the map. In my case the BT are very good in my amplifier and the Takatsuki-TA 300b is ridiculously sublime(what a tube!).

Melville - how many hours do you have on the BT's? I may be interested in them if you decide to unload them.