Elrog 300B vs Takatsuki 300B tubes

Charles, one of my tubes died at 6 months and 2 days. I hope I have the kind of customer service you received.

Hi Bill,
I hope you do. I'm convinced that the decision to have the tubes match an amplifier's operating parameters is a correct one. My replacement Elrogs are sounding splendid. Listening right now and it's heavenly. Only time will tell regarding durability.
Charles,

Brownsfan, in my opinion a quality 300B tube should last substantially longer than 6 months. Hopefully, the Elrog's failure did not damage your equipment. I was not so fortunate when my Elrog 211 tube failed causing considerable damage to my Coincident Dragon.

There appears to be a lot of Elrog tube failures being reported, therefore, suggesting that their previous history of poor reliability is still an issue and ongoing.

It is unfortunate if the Elrogs turn out to be unreliable and the problem is never fully cured. I would certainly only buy this tube from a very reliable source, such as George Lenz of TubesUSA.

The vintage Western Electrics as well as the more modern ones that were made up through the 1990s were extremely reliable and very long lived. I know a of a lot of people who have used them for MANY years without a failure or the tubes growing weak (the only problem with the newer tubes that I saw myself had to do with poor gluing of the tube to the base (easily repaired). It is quite unfortunate that production has not resumed on this tube.

A local dealer, who has an exclusive custom builder building his house brand of electronics, insists that the older Western Electric 300Bs with "engraved base" are the best 300Bs. He actually puts them into working amps (not kept as museum pieces), but, the price of these tubes are really prohibitively high for all but the craziest and wealthiest fans of the tube. He even has a 59A amp that uses a tube that is similar to the 300B (a 252) that is unbelievably rare--the amp is fantastic sounding.