Best current 845 Tubes

Best is Psvane 845 T, Shuguang 84 is good also.

I've heard most of these (but never heard of the last two) and like the Psvane 845T best even though one of mine died after just 14 months.

I found out the taylor is a rebranded chinese tube. I'm guessing shuguang standard 845. It is sold for radio transmitting.

TJ and Sophia (and Full Music) are the same tube, yes, but Sophia tubes are specially culled, i.e., they are the best of that factory's production.

KR makes an 845 tube and I would expect it to be the best of currently available tubes. KR had a bad U.S. distributor for a few years, which resulted in KR's reputation in the U.S. taking a hit, but their new Ann Arbor-based distributor is fine. E.A.T. and Emission Labs, the other two Prague tube manufacturers, don't make 845's.

While I don't want to say that all Chinese tubes are crap - the Black Treasure stuff out of Shuguang and the TJ / Full Music / Sophia tubes can be quite good - I believe that KR and E.A.T.'s production tends to be a lot better. It can vary by production run, however, as tube manufacturing is largely artisanal and like everything else that's hand-made, a worker has good days and bad - there can be bad quality production runs from the more prestigious manufacturers, and good quality runs from the crap manufacturers - you have to have a reputable vendor to ensure that you don't get the "runts of the litter". Why are there two different prices and two different warranties offered by some vendors for what appears to be exactly the same tube? The more expensive ones with the longer warranties tested better.

I'm not sure how relevant this is to the 845's, but I just had a monster quest for PX25 tubes, which are much more scarce.....

I heard from a couple reputable sources that the KR tubes are not of the same quality now that Dr Kron has died. This was confirmed when I went ahead and bought a new pair of their PX25's - they're pretty much the only game in town for new production on these. It turned out that they weren't as robust in construction, and they didn't sound as good as my pair from a few years ago.

I'd be interested to hear if the 845's are also on the decline...