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PSVane KT88 Art series tubes

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donnyginski

New Member
I have a Willsenton R8 and I'm looking to purchase some new KT88 tubes. I was leaning towards the Psvane Art series tubes. Does anyone out there have any experience with these tubes? If so, please let me know thoughts and experiences.
 
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My experience is with PSVAne Horizon tubes purchased from Amazon. Three of the four sets had to be returned because a tube was DOA or had poorly match sections or were a poorly matched pair or the tubes in the box was not what was ordered. PSVane appears to be using Amazon as a dumping ground for poor quality Horizon tubes.
 
I wouldn’t buy tubes from Amazon as they throw packages around and that is not good. Maybe the less expensive ones but not good tubes that are expensive
 
donnyginski said:
I wouldn’t buy tubes from Amazon as they throw packages around and that is not good. Maybe the less expensive ones but not good tubes that are expensive
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Has very little to do with throwing packages around. Main issue is PSVANE factory acceptance specs are 10 miles wide. Every tube made passes their QC spec and gets sold. There are no rejects. The factory leaves it up to the final consumer to sort through the tubes and filter out the duds. If you are going to buy Horizon tubes, you will need to buy 3x what you need to get an attempt at obtaining a matched quad.
 
I don't know if it's still true but the reissue gold lions are ( or at least were) the best of the new production kt88s. I haven't bought since before the war in Ukraine ( not because of war , just personal need). I can't speak for current production. I don't know if the war skewed production or Qc since. Unfortunately current production tube sources come from countries I'd prefer not to buy from given a choice.
 
I bought a set of Psvanes for my R8 and find they are light on bass. The Willsentons that came with the R8 are better in IMO. I also have the repro Gold Lions and repro Mullard EL34s. I have yet to do a shootout back to back.
 
I was very pleased with the reproduction Mullard KT88's I used for 3 years, recently replaced with GL's which perhaps have a bit more bass, didn't notice much else.
 
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