The WE 300B

Discussion in 'Power Amps' started by bazelio, Feb 26, 2019.

  1. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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  2. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    Has anybody tried these repros yet?
     
  3. willsw

    willsw Friend

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    At AXPONA, I heard, he was saying that preorders are shipping in 6 weeks and new orders will begin shipping around June.

    Psvane has a newish 300B that's looking like a bargain at $999/pair to join their own WE replica (which alludes in its description to just how long this WE guy has been telling people he's going to make new ones, though this time it looks like he's actually doing it).

    I've talked to a couple of amp designers who have mentioned that some of the new-production (by other brands, not the forthcoming officialish WE clones) 300Bs are actually electrically different enough from older/WE 300Bs that they don't work correctly in their circuits.
     
  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Some new production "300Bs" are slightly different and designed to be used under slightly different parameters for extra power. The KR 300BXXXLS or whatever is one of these.

    As far as Pissvane, I have my doubts (I've owned several of their replica series and heard most of their existing line). They make stuff with a unique sound which I know will appeal to many. Personally, I'd still take a vintage tube, EML, or JJ (bargain) over any Psvane. As always, they can prove me wrong, and I will eat my words if they do. For $999, they better prove me wrong.
     
  5. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    I talked to a young guy at the show, got a vague answer about building these in batches, no firm ship date but the same general idea of them shipping soon.
     
  6. sheldaze

    sheldaze Friend

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  7. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    Excellent ! I know I've posted elsewhere that I received my set as well in January of this year. My spare time for audio has diminished again recently so I haven't had time to listen to them yet.

    Perhaps @yotacowboy can post impressions on this thread or we can find a good single place to collect thoughts on these.
     
  8. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Sure thing - I'm going to let them burn in for 100 hours or so before doing any direct comparisons or writing up anything substantive.
     
  9. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    Small aside - I contacted the "new" WE and asked if they had other tubes in the pipeline (of any variety - power tubes, rectifiers, small signal tubes, etc.) and unfortunately the answer was a solid "No" - only the 300B for a while. More tubes maybe in the future. Sucks b/c I suspect for a steady supply of GOOD tubes would be a godsend for most anyone who use tubes (i.e. far beyond SBAF).

    Funny enough to me, they want to focus their efforts on new tube amps... One of which is a pair of monoblocks that take 8x WE300B each amongst other tubes (tubes that they don't make...). Well, here's to hoping they sell some amps to pay for more different tube production equipment.
     
  10. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    I wonder about the actual margin on making even the 300Bs in the US. Is there any other tube manufacturing taking place in the US these days, even boutique brands? New Sensor Corp. in Queens owns a bunch of brands (Electro-Harmonix, Genalex, Mullard, Sovtek, Svetlana) but they're all made in Russia.
     
  11. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    I think for WE it boils down to the investments they've made in modernizing the 300B tooling. I'm not trying to be a fanboi, but from a technical manufacturing perspective, what they're doing is interesting to me. Taking 60+ year old tooling and modernizing it - changing some things (graphene coated pure nickel plates) while keeping other things (barium and strontium coated filaments, from what I've read, from the last filament wire smelt back in the 1970's) is probably enough for WE to deal with until they recoup initial capital investment. Then perhaps invest in some new tooling for tubes in the same envelope, or perhaps some small signal tubes.

    As far as margins, after receiving these I can safely say that there's likely about $100 in COGS in extraneous "luxury good experience" crap, i.e., individual serialization, individual traces, 5 year warranty, over-the-top packaging and documentation. Some of the printed materials are even using old school offset press printing (waste of money!). My best guess is that the tubes themselves "only" cost WE about $300-400 or so to manufacture. So maybe after a while they offer a no frills tube purchase for $600 or $700? But I get it. There are ORFAS out there that are sitting on a cache of old production WE300Bs that command outrageous prices, so if these new ones perhaps sound better, what does that mean for the old dude with a few sets of NOS WE300Bs supposedly worth $60k? Personally, i think, kinda f**k that guy. Which is sort of why I chose to support WE with some of my money.

    Edit: As a 300B newb, I'd absolutely love to hear a pair of NOS WE300Bs, and I'd also absolutely love it if the most recent new production sounds better in my system.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2021
  12. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    I wondered the same about their margin. I don't think tubes are being made here b/c stuff is either tied up in "IP" (new WE mentions they had to buy the IP) or b/c machining and tooling is no longer available. I suspect other tubes being made in Russia and China wasn't as much b/c labor was cheaper, but probably b/c the above wasn't as much of an issue.

    Just from their videos talking about the production process (which may glorify the production process as it is a marketing video), them buying a building, tooling, and IP, sorting out production kinks again, etc etc blah blah blah - my guess was that they were going to sell matched pairs for ~$1k to still make some money initially and then maybe drop the price down to $800 street price after a few years. Maybe $1.3-1.4k (now) to support a small dealer network, etc. if they don't do direct sales.

    $1500 is more than the "worth it" price to me if I needed them. I'm with yota at $600-700 for a pair though. But even at $1500/pair, I guess getting 100% genuine, known new and factory tested/matched tubes with a warranty beats paying "some guy" a few thousand or even a low 5 figure number now days for a supposedly matched pair and hoping for that everything is good.
     
  13. yotacowboy

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    Now that I've got some time on three sets of 300Bs, I figured I can give some impressions for anyone interested.

    First, to give a little background on the history of amps/integrateds I've had in my speaker setup over the years to hopefully help triangulate preferences: Cayin TA-30 (same factory as Prima Luna, 35W PP EL34 integrated with point-to-point wiring), Nuforce/Optoma STA200, Schiit Aegir monos, EC Af, and now Elekit TU-8600S w/ VCap CUTFs. All were driving AN UK AZ-Twos with hemp woofers. Rest of the chain is Roon on Pi2AES via AES XLR to Yggdrasil A2, Freya S running 4x output to Elekit via Cinemag XLR to RCA, with either RCA clear top 12AU7s, Psvane 12AU7-T mkii, or Telefunken smooth plate 12AU7s, and Telefunken smooth plate 12AX7 or Psvane 12AX7-T mkii.

    Second, disclaimer: other than at audio shows or at dealers, I don't have much experience with 300B amps, so given the oft used general description of the differences between other large envelope tubes, 2A3, 45, etc., my expectation bias was set to be prepared for a bit "warm and gooey".

    Anywhoo, briefly stated, the new stock Western Electric bests the LinLai Global E-300B, but not by much. Could be horses for courses, depending on ancillary system synergies and tonal character preferences. Both the LinLai and the NS WE thoroughly trounce the Gold Lions in just about every possible audiophile axis in a 17-way spider chart. WEs present with sheer gorgeousness and with only a slightly luxurious tube character, LLs are the best solid state I've heard in my room, and the GLs match the stereotypical "300B sound". Reporting on rolling different small signal tubes turns into an effort similar to mapping a matrix organizational structure, or linear algebra.

    Gold Lions: These were in the amp the first time I fired it up, and for another 300-400 hours. I went back and forth between the Aegirs and the Gold Lion (GL) equipped TU-8600 a good deal during the first couple weeks of listening. GLs present better horizontal image delineation, resolve more air/space around instruments than Aegir, and vocals had more chest-voice. Especially noticeable on female vocals, this slight muddiness was a bit less preferable on male vocals and piano, compared to Aegir. Comparing bass, Aegir has better texture and extension, but sounds a bit leaner. Again, this could be part of my expectation that all or most 300B amps typically exude this tubby-tube-ey quality. But the tubbiness with the GLs doesn't affect the bass below about 80Hz, and it's not adding rubberiness or flaccid overhangs - it's more that the chesty-quality of the lower midrange creeps into the upper bass range. Transient information through the GLs is presented at least as well as Aegir (which is only slightly syruppy), with a bit better upper frequency snap (like sticks hitting a drum head, or piano hammer strikes). However, cymbal work seemed to fall back into the soundstage a bit, which depending on your preferences, might be a good thing or a bad thing. Overall, the GLs body, tone/timbre, and detail all add up to provide a more convincing presentation than Aegirs, especially once the added detail in the treble is factored in, too.

    LinLais: These were a surprise for me! I was expecting them to be a bit underwhelming given my experience with a good number of new stock Chinese 6SN7s I rolled through my old Freya. Not so here! After giving them 100 hours or so, the closest sound I would compare them with is the EC Af running the mesh plate EMLs. The LLs do the whole "tube amp that sounds more like really-good-solid-state" amp thing in my system. With the LLs, it's the first time I've heard my speaker rig resolve image depth in any kind of convincing way. Width-wise they imaged big, big, big while not sounding diffuse or unspecific. Tonally, in the midrange, the LLs are a touch cool, especially comparing directly with the GLs. But the treble is delicate, and more refined than the GLs. So, overall, a bit sweeter presentation, without the chesty-coloration of the GLs. Planktons galore. Comparing bass, and directly with Aegirs, the LLs again play the "tube amp that sounds more like really-good-solid-state". Better texture and punch, and no bloat or tubbiness. Extension is about the same as Aegirs, which is excellent.

    Western Electrics: I had no idea what to expect here! I mean, it's a f'ing WE300B - these are supposed to be the best best best, right? But then again, this is priced like the third coming of christ wrapped in dubious audiophool sundry paraphernalia catering to ORFAS. Well, great gooogley-moooogley, I think it might be that both conditions are true. Literally every audiophile-idiot phrase could be used here: veils lifted; like hearing my music collection for the first time; sound jumps out of a pitch black background; the instruments/singer is in the room with me; I've never heard that 3rd seat flautist queef during the triple forte finale of some obscure 1958 recording of some Shostakovich piece; the sound was so palpable, Melody Gardot's Live album cover artwork came to life in my audio dungeon and gave me a BJ, yada yada yada. Honestly, it's not that I don't believe a reviewer when those catch phrases are used; it's just that I think sometimes when an audio experience presents itself in an entirely novel and more realistic and convincing way, we (as completely unprofessional reviewers) maybe tend to think that the means for expressing our experience should also be novel and realistic and convincing. Sometimes it’s just difficult to express in a novel way. Anyway, for the WEs I'll put it this way, all of the stupid cliches fit, even if it's all only relative to the other equipment I've spent considerable time with. The Elekit with these WE tubes is the best sound I’ve heard in my room yet. I kind of hate that I can't find the words to share my experience with these tubes in a truly insightful way that isn’t just regurgitating the same kind of hyperbole we read in Stereophile or TAS, so feel free to drop a dislike whatever, or fire away with questions, or call me full of shit, it's cool. Sometimes it’s easier to write specifically about things that don’t sound very good.
     
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    Last edited: May 7, 2021
  14. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Now that I've had some time dicking around with these, and some "i'm just gonna listen to music" time, I think the only thing I'd add at this point is that there's a distinct difference between the LL and WE: the LL tubes sort of require a specific driver tubeset in the amp to present their best (Tele 12AUs and Tele smoothplate AX7's, so probably kinda gummy overall driver setup) in my amp. The WE tubes kinda don't care and simply present different shades of a different kind of glowy burnished golden-ish sound that's still just as extended, but a bit more sweet than the LL's. One 300B might be more "neutral" but that word "neutral" is frustratingly nefarious/nebulous.
     
  15. Josh Schor

    Josh Schor Friend

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    I recently purchased WE 300b reissues, wow its glorious, great clear articulate bass, with mids that are clear, easily hear singers go from chest to throat to head. the top is clean and defined warm without any harshness. The tubes do have a sound they make as they are breaking in like gas escaping, clicking which goes up and down in frequency. This happens at first and after 10 hours of playing, noticeable in quiet passage's. I have spoken to WE they say to give them the 500 hours break in. I have compared them to the LIN Lai global e 300b, they sound flat without the full sound stage and warmth and glow I hear with the WE. I love this tube and hope it quiets down.
    Using in EC Studio B with Jupiter 0.1 caps and TKD pot. Utopia's
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2022
  16. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Mine still make slight pinging and tinkling noises for about 15 seconds after powering on after 4-5,000 hours on the tubes. I wouldn't worry too much about it; it's just the filaments expanding as they come up to temp.
     
  17. batriq

    batriq Probably has made you smarter

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    Mine do the same and they're 23 years old
     
  18. Josh Schor

    Josh Schor Friend

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    My set of WE 300B have over 500 hours on them. they are noisy even after hours of playing on my Studio B. I contacted WE and they have been very responsive and will be replacing them. They think it has to due with the filament specs. Im happy with the time and effort they are taking to fix this, I do not want to have to return them. I'm listening again with my Linlai global e 300b tubes and the difference is striking. They sound good but flat across the FR without the golden richness of the WE tubes, man I hope this can be worked out.
     
  19. CEE TEE

    CEE TEE MOT: NITSCH

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    Oh dang, I think I have a new request for the loaner program. :eek:
     
  20. Josh Schor

    Josh Schor Friend

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    the WE are worth it and really worth listening to
     

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