I'm way behind on posting about 'Fresh Catches' of cool audio gear that I've purchased, built, borrowed, or that is in for review at Positive Feedback Online, so over the next week or so I'll try to post - in the order I have received them - some updates on the latest 'Fresh Catches'.
First up is the Sophia Electric Royal Princess 300B vacuum tube. Sophia Electric says the Royal Princess 300B vacuum tube "has the best virtues of both Princess mesh plate and Princess carbon plate 300B tubes and sound light-years ahead of any 300B tubes made in the history including both Sophia Electric Princess Carbon Plate 300B and Princess Mesh plate 300B tubes that won worldwide praises." See the Sophia Electric website for the full scoop and technical specifications.
The Royal Princess are astonishingly expensive at $1200 per matched pair, automatically excluding it from being a good value for a pair of 300B tubes regardless of its level of performance. Rather, it is being touted as the finest sounding 300B tube that has ever been manufactured, either now or in the past, so what you're paying for here is not value, but the cutting edge of performance in the 300B vacuum tube class, and the cutting edge is always expensive. Given that my favorite 300B tubes, the Western Electric 300B tubes, were going for around $900 per pair when production stopped (and it hasn't restarted yet that I know of), it seems apparent that the Sophia Electric Royal Princess is looking to take the title of 'the best' away from Western Electric with this tube. Time will tell.
The build is truly outstanding, and the Royal Princess exudes quality, just as my own Sophia mesh plate 300B vacuum tubes do. The build certainly appears to be better than my favored Western Electric 300B of yore, which I no longer have a pair of, unfortunately. Hopefully I'll be able to find a pair for comparison purposes for the review.
The character of the sound of the Royal Princess (RP) 300B has changed quite a lot as the tubes have been going through their running in process (said to take between 100 to 300 hours), so I won't comment on any specifics yet other than to say I have been impressed with what I'm hearing.
Below is a photo of the rear view of the Sophia Electric RP 300B, followed by a photo of my Sophia Electric mesh plate 300B for comparison.
Look closely at the photo below and note the perforated (mesh) plate, and then compare it to the solid plate of the Royal Princess above. Very intriguing!
Isn't that Sophia Electric 91-01 mono 300B amp with all those ST shaped vacuum tubes a wonderful sight!
More to come!
