I know Sarah is hung up in the supply chain, but I figured this might be a good place to centralize a discussion about 300B tubes. Tubes you've heard, heard about or if you are just #tubecurious. I'll start with my experience with my Space-Tech 300B amp.

I've heard 3 pairs of 300B tubes: Electro-Harmonix (aka EH, made in Russia), "Billington Gold" (aka BG, Chinese) and Takatsuki, made in Japan.

I don't have much to say about the EH tubes. They were used and came with the amp (which was also used), and one of them was probably roughed up in shipping and had an annoying amount of hum. It was the first tube I tried when I got the amp and I didn't listen to them very long. Even beyond the hum the sound was thin and unengaging and I quickly moved on to the BG tubes.

Billington is one of my favorite places to buy tubes. They aren't especially easy to deal with because they don't have a web store, and to get the best price you need to order GBP 240 worth of stuff. But the GBP is cheap these days, Martin the owner is great and they have a ton of high quality stock.

https://web211.secure-secure.co.uk/tube-and-valve-electronics.co.uk/default2.asp...

The Billington Gold tubes were just south of 200 bucks, and figured that was a good enough to see what this 300B thing was about. The tubes sounded pretty good out of the box, quiet and much better than the EH tubes in every way. It took maybe 50 hours to really settle down. The sound is pretty much what I would expect from a 300B tube, lush, warm midrange, and definitely tipped towards the low frequencies. If anyone is looking for a high quality (relatively) inexpensive 300B tube I would recommend these. Billington has even less expensive 300B, for as little is 120 GBP for a pair of generic Shuguang (if you make the minimum order).

Compared to my UFOs they had more bass and a "juicier" midrange but were lacking high end air and sparkle, didn't have the details or the same sense of space. I rolled a bunch of 6SN7 equivalent tubes for the input and driver stages and the amp sounded really good taken on its own. I should have just stopped there...

But I couldn't stop thinking I've gone this far, shouldn't I get top of line 300B tube? Of course the answer is yes, which means I needed to pick which one, cuz this has already gone far enough and no way am I going to be rolling kilobuck 300B tubes. Based on discussions on another message board with guys who do roll kilobuck 300B tubes it seemed like there were 3 choices. I posted this in another thread but I'll repeat it here:

WE: The classic 300B sound. Gorgeous midrange liquidity, but slightly rolled off highs and lows relative to the other tubes.

Takatsuki: A little less classic than WE. Less emphasis on the mids, more uniform top to bottom. A little more transparent.

Elrog: (the current favorite) More dynamic and transparent, less warm. Not the classic 300B sound.

Maybe the best comparison I saw was in terms of female vocalists.

WE = Etta James
Takatsuki = Ella Fitzgerald
Elrog = Whitney Houston  

So I got Takatsuki and have no regrets. After about 100 hours they really sound fabulous. And my 300B amp actually sounds a lot like my UFOs. Now it has plenty of air, transparency and detail, a really nice midrange and tight, fast well defined bass. I think Steve said rolling input tubes has a bigger effect than 300B tubes but that isn't my experience (my amp, my system yada, yada). I've tried a bunch of input tubes and they tweaked the sound but going from the BG tube to the Takatsuki was going from really good to WOW!

You can't beat the UFO for value IMO. If two and a half watts works for you, and you like the Decware "house sound" they run up the score on anything else. But if you want the 300B experience you can't get that without a 300B amp.

Two things to note here. . .CA is talking about another manufacturer's amp, and his experience with a few tubes, not the Sarah and tubes in that amp. And the very expensive 300B tube amps are purported to last far longer than the small tubes the Zen amps use. I get about one year out of the power tubes I buy from Steve, and the Western Electric 300B is warranted for five years and I have read reports of persons using them far longer.

Thank you CA and Lon for the additional insight into 300B considerations. I guess what I'd need to know in order to make an informed decision is how the cheap 300B tubes in the Sarah compare to the UFO.

I am still unsure how well that would work for me as I would likely wonder what I was missing from premium tubes and I just don't know if I can reconcile that kind of expense with something meant to be consumable, even if guaranteed to last 5 years.

I am also curious about the small UFO tubes only lasting one year. I thought they were rated for 10K hours? Even if left on 12 hours a day, everyday, they should last 2 years. Am I missing something, or is it more a case of they have life left after 1 year, but are diminished somewhat and cheap enough to replace before fully spent?

Hi CA James,

I was curious about your 300B amp, and I thought you mentioned it by brand a couple months ago, maybe not. I searched for it, but the Decware search engine only allows a review of of a member's last 100 posts. Your reference may have been beyond that.  What amp did you settle on if you don't mind me asking?

Tony

CA, how’s the amp sounding?

Brad

So, after listening to the (expensive) Takatsukis for a month I decided to go back to the cheap Chinese tubes for a day. FTR they look a lot like the white base, gold pin Guiguang tubes I see on ebay. Before I did that I swapped some tubes in my pre to lean up the sound a little to combat the (IMO) excessive "richness" I experienced using them initially.

Honestly, my first impression was a little disappointment in the sound compared to the expensive tubes, or my tricked out UFOs (which I haven't heard in over a month now). But as the day wore on and I could evaluate the sound on its own terms it was still really good. One of the things I've struggled with on this message board is posters who are chasing "density" because I don't know what it means. If it is lower mid/upper bass "richness" or "fullness" (what I think of as the classic 300B sound I remember back in the day) then this amp with these tubes has it in spades. It also throws a huge sound stage in which the instruments sound big, but rather amorphous.

I suspect a lot of people would really enjoy this sound, but it isn't my cupa'. It doesn't have the detail and speed and air, the intoxicating transparency, that I love about the UFOs and the space-tech amp with the Takatsuki tubes. One of my online friends on another site has similar tastes to mine and he tried a bunch of high end 300Bs and sold them all off except for the Takastukis, which I why I choose them. I'm not going to try to talk anyone out of buying WE 300Bs, but for me I have no regrets buying the Japanese tubes. To me they are the prefect marriage of 300B goodness and UFO speed and transparency.

Yes, the same fellow is a member of the PS Audio forum and selling them there.

I considered it--this is a good price. . . but decided I'll hold out for a pair of Western Electric, especially with a coupon from Decware. I think I'd like that tube best. Can't wait to try out the Decware 300B!

Thanks for sharing those impressions. Tons of jazz pour out of my SE84UFO3 Monoblocks with the 25th Anniversary mods and great tube complements. The sound just amazes me every day. These Zen amps of all stripes are the ones to beat. . . and I do think that the SEWE300B will maybe not BEAT them but will offer an enticing difference.

I will probably, financial situation allowing, have both and keep both when my SEWE300B is built and shipped. I'm #93 right now. I have high hopes for this amp. . .which I think will be realized.

I did not cancel an amp. I'll definitely share my impressions. I'm hoping for just a touch more bass and a touch more imaging body. We'll see. I'm so very happy with the sound that I have that I sometimes wonder why I have an SEWE300B on order.

What I do with mine is I play with the gain between the amp and preamp. I find that with the amp about 80 percent and more gain pushed into it from the preamp I get a beefier sound that I prefer.

There are so many great ways to listen in the audio world. I really love my Taboo Mk IV for both speakers and headphones, though I prefer the UFO amps by a few hairs for speakers that don't need the Taboo power--there's just a natural grace as an element not as prominent in the Taboo. And for headphones I've found a really neat symbiosis with a Bottlehead Foreplay III preamplifier (without the final mod that does away with the 0D3 regulation tube) and a PS Audio GCHA headphone amp which are killer with ZMF Ori headphones.

I'm most interested in the SEWE300B because it's Steve's design, and his engineering has reached such a plateau and his unique sonic vision leads me to believe it will be one of a kind in the 300B amp world and will have so much of what we love in the UFO characteristic.

I sure wish those who have the amp already would chime in here (more).

I stumbled upon this piece on 300B tubes. It is not a product review or a sales piece but more on the history and producers of the 300B.

I thought it was an interesting read.

http://www.jacmusic.com/techcorner/ARTICLES/English/Portraits/300B/300B-index.ht...

Quote:


Interesting. I heard that a Chinese manufacturer bought the rights to Brimar but never saw the tubes in the wild. I've also heard you can get 300Bs labeled Cossor as well.