Anyone have issues dealing with Sophia Electric ?

I have had good luck with 6SN7 tubes from Sophia, which are also very good. I have a friend who purchased the royal princess 300b's and a couple of 6SL7's. The 300B's were great, the 6SL7's were garbage. Sophia needs to do better for the money they are charging.

Some people really like the black treasure 300b's better than the Sophias. I think they better get their act together or people are going to go elsewhere.

"Unfortunately the sound from the Sophia tubes is unsurpassed in our experience. I wish they were as robust physically as their wonderful sound reproduction"

I have also found the sound of the A grade 6SN7 tubes unsurpassed, very linear with great extension top to bottom. Unfortunately I have less luck with their longevity. The first failure was within about 90 days of purchase. Sophia Electric replaced both tubes even though i didn't purchase the 1 year warranty, they didn't have to do that and could have said you're out of luck. Since then one of those two replacements recently failed. When testing the 2nd I noticed that it was borderline on the transconductance test, this at less than 2500 hours. So the fact that they sound great my experience to date tells me these tubes are not as robust as some of the other NOS 67N7 tubes I've used, not by a LONG shot. These are probably early results as what might be expected. The tubes in question are being used in a pre-amp output stage and the failure of both in such a short period of time indicate a QC or parts deficiency in their manufacturer relative to NOS tubes. I would be interested if others have had my experience with this tube.

Tubegroover, I bought replacements for my first set of Sophia 6SN7s at about 24 months, because I had a weird problem that I thought might have been one of the tubes. It wasn't the tube at all. I now have about 30 months on the original pair. They are used in my modwright sony cd player. I don't think your problem is typical. But I now have a nice pair of spare sophias, so I should be set for a long time.

Interestingly enough Brownsfan, I recently purchased a used Modwright 95 with the Sophia's so I have another pair to measure and see how they fare over time. I really hope you're right about my problem not being typical because I really like the tube but at the price I expect it to last a bit longer. I may give them one more shot but plan on speaking with them first before purchasing.

My experience matches your. My first pair of Royal Princess 300B tubes had a tube failure in less than 3 months of light use. The replacement pair were extremely microphonic. They rang like bells when tapped lightly with my fingernail. I was told that it needed to be broken in. (Or how long do you think Ive been stupid?) Of course, they were still microphonic after breakin. Reporting no improvement, I was told, "Stop tapping the tube." I would never recommend Sophia, especially hearing the experience is not unique.

BTW, their 300B is good but its not a Western Electric. The Westerns won hands own in my system shoot out.