Awesome to hear PSvane cares that much about the tubes they make especially since people always put Chinese companies down for after sale service.
PSVANE Mfg Co replaced my older 6SN7 CV-181 TII tubes
Sharing - in case this might help others. This came out of the blue unexpectedly.
Over the holidays I had written PSVANE Co Mfg asking why my older TJ Full Music 6SN7s simply sounded better than my 3yr old PSVANE CV-181 TII tubes I only used 1yr. These TIIs had a mfg date of Oct 2021. Used them some, they got dull. Had been just sitting there in a fancy box and I happened to mention it vaguely over one email that was more about the new line of tubes and wondering about change overall with the new series of tubes. I was not there for any other reason.
Also confirmed that PSVANE did in fact buy tooling and some of the smaller tubes business from TJFM after the father passed on. Another reason I was comparing.
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I was #1 asking if any of the TJFM tooling and offerings had made its way into the new lines of PSVANE had been offering in 2024, including ArtSeries, Horizon lines.
#2 reason was to get an idea of what may have changed since coming out of the pandemic and/if there were updates on the overall design, quality, testing, QA for any of the 6SN7 CV-181 types of tubes, PSVANE, other lines.
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Long story, I get this reply back a day or so later from someone there [not identifying a name, just an email distro list] asking me to send photos of the tubes, test tags, boxes etc. Back and forth a few times over email with good English and extra help coming in - nice, interesting.
I had also recalled recently seeing psvane tubes showing up here as.a member on Agon and that time was short lived before being removed by Agon admins or someone. It was clear to me they were trying to assess their position, customers, and any feedback they could get here on Audiogon. So, I gave it directly over email. Honestly,still hung up on why my older TJFM tubes sounded better :)
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RESPONSE:
PSVANE immediately came back and told me there were known "quality assurance issues" during that Oct 2021 period and they "would happily replace the tubes with new ones", shipped to me "free of charge", direct from the factory. Also expressing how those matters have since been resolved and did not want unhappy customers.
I agreed to their policy to physically "break my tubes, smash the glass, photograph them, send them photos". This is so bad tubes don’t end up back on the market being resold and causing further complaints no longer the case with new versions.
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Tubes arrived in 17 days after they agreed to pack well and ship. They are the same TIIs with a different looking "T Series" label on the box outside for T-Series.
From the outside, same shape, size, same gray coating, bigger than my TJ Full Music as before. These 2025 tubes look close to the 2021 version outside.
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SOUND, out of the box:
First test they were a little veiled over for the first 1-20 minutes. At hours 1-4 increasingly opening up, texture and sound stage all coming in at once - with definite separation, not blurred together at all. Pretty neat actually.
6SN7 tube preamp, 50w Class A solid state amp for the first try. Tube amps later.
Track:"In my secret life" by Leonard Cohen
Hearing his voice direct at the center, and female singers coming out of Right & Left channel at the speakers from both sides - all at the same time but with real separation. Some of my other 6SN7s can co-mingle the sound just a little bit.
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Changes:
- Nicer tone
- New texture
- More open, perfect speaker to speaker side to side sound stage
- A bit more separation of everything, all singers and instruments
- A bit more layering now (and this is my SS amp, not my tube amps)
- Other tracks, Nils or Stevie Ray, Guitars sound more authentic
Why Share:
I replied to the person of authority there who replaced these tubes for me that I’d make a post of exactly what resulted and that I’d tell it straight as I hear it good or bad starting out. Maybe some updates later over time as tbd.
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Next:
I’ll leave these full replacements in my preamp for at least 90 days or unless something changes.
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Summary:
Glad I gave these newer 2025 PSVANE a 2nd chance vs buying others like the Horizon or just staying with my older TJFM still lasting well, gonna store those.
We’ll see how this goes and if they last. Hope to keep them in play, they sound very nice right now.
Not sure if this helps anyone or not but some times it might be worth giving things a 2nd try maybe, and particularly so when the MFG wants to help make good on it.
Enjoying what Im hearing right now. It’s causing me to keep my SS amp in play for longer too, no joke the guitar tone, texture, and spatial sound is extra nice now fwiw. .
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- 5 posts total
@decooney I will definitely follow this thread as I followed the tread you mentioned earlier with the guy from Psvane trying to get a feel for his market here on Agon. WTS, I think you are probably the right guy for the job of evaluating the tubes over time and giving the feedback needed for future buyers. I for one have been very pleased with Psvane tubes in every application I have tried them in but soured a bit with the short life of some of their WE replica 6SN7plus tubes and have looked elsewhere for my needs. I am going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt that replacing your 3 year old tubes wasn't the equivalent of a politician buying votes and will be following this to see your updates. Good job, and thank you. Enjoy the music |
Got it @tooblue will do. Thanks for your confidence too. I think I put a bit too much hope on my tube preamp to lead the stage of everything downstream perhaps. However i’m super familiar with my preamp and how it sort of dictates what my amp(s) and speakers do downstream. Every 6SN7 tube I’ve tried in my preamp all sound different from one to the next, vintage, re-issue, mid budget to high end types. I don’t have any 6SN7 input/driver based amps any more, so Pre it is. We can let this thread hang out here for anyone who chimes in behind this. I was seeing a lot of hyper-marketing about the new lower cost Horizon tube, caught my attention. Kept thinking nice, yea but, what happened to the others like TII, Shuguang line, Art Series and the folks kept brining up "Acme" series to me, but I only saw those with output tubes. Note: I had no idea what PSVANE would send as a replacement. I took photos of all of it, tried to post photos on the image function, and they all came out compressed in odd shapes, from Google images so I did not. May tryin again but you cannot see what’s what if they frame size is distorted. May try later. I listened again last night and the TIIs opened up just a little more last two times. Seem to be more stabilized now. So, as I ask myself - is this early giddy thoughts starting out, and will they "last", seems to be the $64MM question. After I get a few more replies on Agon, I might go ahead and share this thread link back with the person at PSVANE MFG Co who initiated the replacement, tracking numbers, and "assured me they’d get here safely without damage" etc. They did get here just fine. This is just one sample of support and change for improvement. Like you, I followed a few trails of those with "dull" tubes. Most of those tubes seemed to have been made around 2-3 years ago [maybe?]. Let’s keep track of this as needed - anyone who has a story to share about trying the new 2025 tubes or replacement stories working with PSVANE Co or any distributors. My take is PSVANE has made some real investments, maybe some of us had some bad tubes early on, and now they are trying to make good on it. As others have mentioned here past few years "time will tell". Thanks! |
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