Best 300B

Bill,
I know you and your wife are going to enjoy your new home and the beautiful TN. location, getting rid of lard is a good thing LOL. No need to rush concerning the 300b tubes swapping, you have excellent sound as it is.
Charles,

I have the EML 300bXLS and 300b Sophia Mesh and enjoy them both for different reasons. The mesh do crazy textural audio tricks in my room which makes for just plain fun psychedelic listening, and the EML's sound more powerful more linear and accurate. The EMLs are my go to tubes and if I had to choose one they would be it but glad to have both.
Jet

Charles and I have totally different equipment, but similar experiences with 300b tubes. I prefer the Takatsukis over the Royal Princes and think that both totally outclass the Shuguang BTs. I have not heard the Psvane Treasures that by all reports seem to be better than the Shuguangs. And I have not heard the EML mesh plates that Charles says are competitive with the Takatsukis and Royal Princess. I keep looking for a review of the WE replicas, but have not seen one. While I might be curious as to how they would sound, I am totally content with the Takatsukis. So much so that I bought a back-up pair. I know, crazy. My experience with SET amps is that the tube selection affects the sound a lot.

Gsm,
Yes, I have to agree with you, depending on the 300b I can significantly
alter the sound of my SET amplifier. It makes sense when think about it
however. Very simple and direct circuits with a low number of parts used.
Each 300b is exposed virtually bare to reveal its sonic characteristics. I've
been fortunate enough to have heard 10 different models of the 300b and
everyone of them changed the amplier's sound noticeably. This is a
testament to the innate transparency of a good SET circuit, pure and
natural. Gary, you having a back up Takatsuki pair makes perfect sense to
me. I'm listening to my Takatsuki as I'm typing this. I rotate them and my
EML XLS every 3 or 4 weeks.
Charles,

There are obvious problems associated with execution of the following proposal, but it almost seems as if there could be a huge demand for a vacuum tube lending library, or perhaps a tube co-op. I'd be willing to spend 1-2K on a pair of 300Bs, but I would certainly like to have assurance that I have invested in the tube that I found most satisfactory. I know some of you have a couple of flavors that you retain and use on a regular basis, but not many people are going to pony up for a pair of NOS WEs, an EML, Sophia RP, a WE replica, etc, just to run the experiment.