Anyone have issues dealing with Sophia Electric ?

"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.

Actually, I have two pairs of NOS Western Electric tubes and neither pair have the last bit of upper resolution nor the final end of deep bass that the Sophia Electric 300B Royal Princess does. It is by quite a measure a superior sounding tube.

And we have five different amplifiers here and it's the same with them all.

But think about it. In those days the equipment did not reproduce sound to anywhere near the full spectrum that we are able to experience on today's equipment. So how could the engineers in those days have even designed the old 300B tube to live up to what our new products can allow you to hear now (20Hz to 20KHz or even more). The truth is, they simply could not have. But oh that magic midrange!

I keep my WE nos 300Bs only as an investment and for personal reasons now. You'd have to kill me as they say...
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In the three months that have passed since my first post here about Sophia Electric, almost all of our issues have been settled with a high degree of professionalism.

Richard has always been first rate in trying to help with all of our service and technical issues, and I have to say it again... I still believe that this tube is sonically superior to any other that I have personally experienced.

And we also still offer Sophia Electric 300B tubes with our amplifiers. I think they are working very hard to solve every problem, and believe me, we manufacturers do encounter some of those along the way.

Sometimes all the research and development and all the testing one can come up with still cannot measure up to what real life can dish out, especially when it comes to shipping!

All one can ask for is good fast service and for us to always quietly and quickly honor the warranty when needed.

When that customer trusts you enough to give you their business, especially a new company that manufactures products that can cost so much money - in today's economy no less - they should never have to worry about service.

I cannot imagine what it must take to start a company that builds vacuum tubes, much less at the level Sophia Electric does! They certainly make a great sounding product. And that cannot have been anywhere near an easy task.