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Best 845 tube out there?

I am running a pair of Cary CAD-211AE monoblocks with the standard no-name Chinese tubes shipped by Cary. Whilst I am happy with the sound, I think I should buy a pair of 845's to keep as backup in case something happens to these tubes.

Because I will need to buy FOUR of them, this rules out any tube that sells for stupid money (e.g. vintage RCA 845 tubes).

The only current production 845's I am aware of are:

- Shuguang 845 "standard"
- Shuguang 845B
- Shuguang 845C
- Shuguang PSVANE 845
- KR Audio 845

I have found reviews of the Shuguang 845B and 845C, but there is virtually no information out there on the new Shuguang "psvane" 845. Has anybody heard this valve, and is it a noticable improvement over the 845B and C? Also, what do people think of the KR?
amfibius
keng
3 posts
 
KR 845 sounded indeed outstanding so far in my system. The KR were installed on my Nagra VPA (year 2010) and I cannot fault the “sound” in my system but absolutely nothing else. I have just posted couple of days ago in the following forum:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ymisc&1238460557&read&keyw&zzkr+audio

Good luck to whoever thinking of buying KR845 because I really think you need plenty of luck and dollars.
nhocti
44 posts
 
FYI,

KR US Distributor had decided not to carry the big KR tubes such as 845 & 211.

We have had quite a few 845 pairs that failed after a few months so we also decided not to mess with them.
keng
3 posts
 
Nhocti,
That is very wise of you and good business ethic. I could have sold all my KR845 (including the 2 new ones) to recover much more than the 50% refund but that would be transferring those questionable KR845 to someone else.
early's avatar
early
63 posts
 
Curious to hear from Psvane WE 845 owners how their tubes are holding up now that they have some usage?
Thanks
nhocti
44 posts
 
Keng,

Thanks.
We actually refunded 100% less shipping to our customer.
On the other hand, we have yet to receive our money in full from the distributor but that is our problem. :)

On another note, we are waiting to receive some new Shuguang 845C-1 and our understanding is they are rated at 100W so we are excited.
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