Sue at Sophia Electric mentioned that she thought the Princess™ Carbon Plate 300B Vacuum Tube ($600 USD per matched pair) would really complement the coaxial drivers in my Tannoy Westminster Royal SE loudspeakers, and asked if I would like to borrow a pair to listen to. You bet I would - thanks Sue! 🙂
It also turns out that I now have 4 pairs of Sophia Electric 300B tubes here at Jeff's Place. I've got a pair of the Princess™ 300B Mesh Plate Tubes ($465 USD per matched pair) that came stock in the Sophia Electric 91-01 300B mono amplifiers that I purchased from Sue and Richard after I reviewed them for Positive Feedback Online.
Then I had a chance to review the ultra-premium Sophia Electric Royal Princess™ 300B Tubes ($1200 per matched pair) and they nearly caused me to go into a swoon! Many thanks to Richard and Sue for being so kind as to let me keep those in my system to use as a long term reference - they're awesome!
When Don Garber's Fi 300B mono amplifiers arrived, to my delight I found that he had shipped them with the Sophia Electric 300B Globe Mesh Plate Tubes ($350 per matched pair). As you know from my previous posts, Don holds the Sophia Electric vacuum tubes in very high regard, and it's easy to see why: they're beautifully constructed, they're reliable, and they sound great.
Now that I have these fours sets of Sophia Electric 300B tubes here, I think I'm going to write them up for Positive Feedback Online, that way you'll have a reference to know what each of the tubes sounds like, and which ones to use to complement your system goals most effectively. Sue told me the Princess™ Carbon Plate 300B tubes will take about 100 hours of playing time to be at their optimum (ditto the globes), so I've got a bit of listening time to go before they'll be ready for evaluation, but stay tuned, there's good things to come!