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
Maxmad,
Thanks for your impressions of the Sophia tube. I`ve been completely happy with the Shuguang Treasure 300b for almost 2 years(sound quality and reliability). I`m however curious to hear an AVVT tube in my amplifier for comparision. Where are they available? Are they similar to the EML 300b tube?
Best Regards,
Dear Phil ( 213cobra ),

Many thanks for your post and even agree with it, I still having doubts about the price v.s. performance of Sophia's.

A good friend of my uses Royal's in his Zanden 7000 and after he tried AVVT C37, he started to hear all these things I have been describing more clearly.

Sophia "Mesh" been described, at least by many Cary CAD 300sei users, as match made in heaven. It took me not that long to realize that it’s not.

This is not the coincidence that Treasures, for example, didn’t do it for me either, Royal's are for sure better, but not vs. AVVT's and KR's. My KR's are tubular type, not in production anymore and have pretty much identical inside construction as AVVT 32BL, but in much smaller glass. Going to give them more listening time, KR's I mean, because they just stay in box after C37 arrived.

The easier way to describe my feelings is when Royal's are installed, I listen to Royal's, and when AVVT's, I listen to music.

There is another player in town, Takatsuki TA 300B, made in Japan with huge influence of Air Tight, here is the link where you can read some impressions

http://robertmusic.blogspot.com/2011/07/heads-up-coming-very-soon-takatsuke-ta.html

I don’t have anything to do with these guys and don’t know more than you, after you read the post from the link, but he seems to have the best 300B's around and even he didn’t compare them to everything he owns yet, but so far, he is very impressed with these Japanese...

THX
Hi Maxmad, I’m a happy owner of the Sophia Royals. I won’t disagree with your findings, which I couldn’t do anyway because you compared them to tubes I haven’t heard, but I’d like to say that 213 cobra’s points are very well stated. I’ve heard a variety of tubes demonstrate their sonic signatures very differently in different amps. I have a friend who is almost constantly modifying and tweaking his tubed components. After a modification, like cobra, he frequently winds up exploring his inventory of tubes and finding that a former reject now fills the bill.

A caution:
In a conversations with Sue from Sophia, she expressed great frustration with the number of Sophia counterfeits floating around.
Maxmad,

I can say that I would never recommend matching Sophia mesh (really, perforated) plate 300Bs with Cary amps. That's doubling down on the same basic sonic aberration. If someone likes that combination, one can't argue with that, but it would be a piling on of the same euphonic colorations that obscure what you value.

I have a pair of KR VV302 Blue glass that sound beautiful and bell-like in some amps, yet hard and overbearing in others. I also have the older KR Enterprises straight tube 300B with the AVVT-like interior structure. Those tubes have strong, vivid transient clarity, probably the firmest bass of any 300B I have, and good top and bottom extension. But in amps I've used them in, their spatial presentation is great in height and width but cmparatively limited in depth. I'm aware of the Takatsuki but haven't tried/heard them yet.

The Shuguang Treasure 300B has been unfailingly good in every amp I've heard them in, albeit a more modern sound than the typically vintage mesh plates. The current production KR AUdio balloon glass 300B nicely resolves a lot of the spikey differences between all these tubes. For me, a polar graph of its relevant sonic attributes is close to a circle in most amps. My mesh plates sound sensational in my re-capped Audion monoblocks, but I consider that a highly-specific match arrived at by chance since they didn't happen to be in the amp when the caps were chosen and installed.

I will say the Sophias were much less expensive when I bought them. But so were KRs. About $900/pr. now for the KR Audio 300B in the US. Partly a result of the dollar's slide and partly result of that company and its distribution chain realizing they had to own up to the true costs of running a business. In all this discussion, interesting that this decade's production of the WE 300B isn't in the mix.

Phil
Phil,
I must say I really agree with your observations. I `ve come to believe that ranking the performance of 300b tubes is not possible due to the many variables such as the ones you mentioned. Certain 300b tubes just seem to match better with different amplifiers based on circuit, passive parts,transformer, power supply design etc.

It can get expensive after a while trying numerous tubes in the higher quality range. If I come across a AVVT,EML or other highly regarded 300b for a reasonable cost I`ll give them a try. Otherwise the Shuguang Treasure is a wonderful mate with my Coincident Frankenstein, so I`ll leave well enough alone for now.
Best Regards,