Favorite 300B: Sophia vs KR

My amps have no manual bias control. Did you order the Black or Ceramic base?

I want to add that Sue at Sophia has been most gracious and accommodating. If this were KR or another I think the situation would be quite the opposite. ;-)

@Sakahara

I wouldn't judge KR bad so fast, unless you have had that experience already...

May I ask you which Sophia's did you buy? Thing is, at least with TJ's, where Sophia's are coming from, that the less expensive pairs aren't that good with keeping the bias and that's very well known problem with them, however Sophia's suppose to have much better quality control. I owned ceramic based Mesh plated, but the most expensive from their line with 1 year warranty and never had any issue with bias or unbalanced L&R.
I sold them and probably will never buy again, KR and AVVT's are my reference now. My next pair, probably, will be KR Balloon 300B, which seems to be better than reissue WE's and they are USD 525 a pair with 2 years of warranty http://www.kraudioproducts.com/Kr/ProductDetail.aspx?CatID=13&ProductID=3

Dont get me wrong guys, but most Chinese tubes are trash and the very small production line, which are also very expensive, are one to get, but than again, even Sophia's so called Mesh aren't really Mesh at all. I say, buy tubes from manufactures who developing and producing good quality tubes, support them instead of some who don't develop a single thing and just re-brand and re-sell.

Thanks for sharing and good luck.

Maxmad,
You raise an interesting point, there`s a big difference in quaility (sonically and built) between the lower/mid price chinese 300b and the premium models. This is why earlier in this threat I`d strongly recommended the Shuguang Treasure Series or the TJ Full Music SE 300b. Yes they`re more expensive but are far better sounding and also extremely reliable.
The KR tubes sound very good, but for a number of audiogon users(read previous threads on this topic) have been unreliable. My amp`s(Coincident) builder Israel Blume stopped using these tubes(he liked the sound)due to poor support by the company for replacing bad tubes, I hope your experience is different. Audiogon member Montejay formerly used both the TJ carbon plate(Sophia) and the KR balloon 300b and reported the Shugaung Treasure tube was an upgrade YMMV.

@Charles1dad

Thanks for your replay, no argue here, cos I know about KR issues in that regard, but also you have to be sure which tubes you are putting in your equipment, cos they may not sound that good as you may expect. Result of this is the necessary tube rolling, which means spending money, lots of it. When I bought my Cary CAD 300SEI it came with full house of Sophia's and I was really pleased until I tried KR's, AVVT's, but more important differ driver and input tubes, cos Cary benefits a lot from them, some say even more than 300B rolling, but I believe in a good total match instead. Now I use full house of ECC33 Mullards, which to me are everything you may need from tubes. But than again, depends on speakers or else you are using... Thats why research and lots of reading, before actually purchase, making more sense up here.
Chinese, in general, trying to produce that sound clone of WE's in many differ ways, while for example Svetlana from Sensor in St.Petersburg like 80% of the WE sound sig, but for like USD 260 - 320 a pair, which is known for a very long time. They did have some quality issues in the past, but seems that now its all over. They are also on my list, but first I want KR Balloon's.

About the service of KR's. TJ's US dealer stopped importing their top notch carbon, cos of the same problems, to many broken tubes and to many issues with replacement, so, its not just KR.

THX

Hello,
Maxmad, Srajan Ebaen(6 Moons.com) during his reviews of 300b tubes was surprised to discover that in the amps he used the driver tube changed the sound character more than swapping the various output tubes.
Grant Audio is the North American distributor for TJ Full Music, I was`nt aware they`re having any problems with the higher end SE 300b tubes.