Favorite 300B: Sophia vs KR



Which do you prefer; S.E.T. Princess 300B Carbon Plate or KR 300B WE Clone?

I've only experienced NOS 40's/50's WE so my expectations are pretty high. Which do you think captures the essence of the WE most closely? I'm trying to keep the cost down as much as possible so EAT is not an option, as much as I was blown away by their KT88. I considered current WE but they're not in production until Spring 2011.

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sakahara
So maybe sacrilege but have a push pull 300b tube amp (actually on the way its 23 watts of power). It runs four 300b's. Comes with EH 300bs. I also have a 300b set with Full Music se 300bs which are very nice tubes but only 2 of them so you can afford the luxury. So 4 of the high end 300bs is going to set me back at least $1,000, maybe even $1500. Yikes - what do I do - will play with the Eh's for a while but know I am already scheming for some Sophias or something else.....? Is there a budget tube that will give me what I need out of my new amp?
Ladavid , The svetlanas are the real deal at around $ 325 a set , these are my new reference replacing EML xls , create/synergy , EH , Black treasures and full music carbons.
one of the things I always wonder about with 300b's is how wide the gulf is between various manufacturers. Prices vary wildly - is something like a Electro Harmonix to Svetlana to new Royal Princess a $700 gap in terms of value and sound. I know only my ears can tell me the answer to that questions so a bit rhetorical.
@Ladavid

Probably quality of material, process and control procedure, but also the quantity. For example, Shuguang, TJ and maybe EH manufacturing like 500 valves a day, maybe more, but KR, EML or EAT manufacturing like 500 in month, all hand made, from start to the end, that's the difference.

As for the sound, I never tried any cheap Chinese or Russians so far, so, nothing I can tell here.
"So maybe sacrilege but have a push pull 300b tube amp”

Ladavid,
The 300b is a great tube and no less so because it’s used in a push-pull amp.
Given the money I had just sunk into my amplifier when I acquired it, I decided to stay with the stock tubes for a while. Since then, in addition to adding the Sophia Royal Princesses, I upgraded the small tubes with the best that I could find. In my system, the improvement has been so great that I wish I hadn’t waited.

It might be somewhat more challenging to find 300b tubes for push-pull amps, like ours, because most 300b tube reviews are conducted with SET amps. I have been advised that the findings in those reviews might not coincide with ours, using push-pulls.