What we had noticed with the combination of Kaivalya and Avantgarde Duo—the presence of an edge now and then—had completely vanished with these Chinese tubes. Brass now was as clean as can be all the way up into Cuban trumpet turf, crashing cymbals faded endlessly into oblivion and female flamenco voices kept a clear throat. ”

Read complete review here.

According to Psvane Audio, the Psvane WE300B Replica is: “100% 1:1 replica of WE300B, including materials, structure, internal and external size – up to the detail of a tiny screw used”.

Sample production run in Dec 2011 with test launch in China and Japan on Jan 8th 2012 has resulted in raving reviews by Chinese and Japanese audiophiles. Worldwide retail price is set at US$935/pair at current Chinese Yuan to USD exchange rate.

Hurry up – do not miss the opportunity for savings and the opportunity to be the first to hear these Psvane WE300B 1:1 Replica sound!

Note: All export version of the WE300B 1:1 Replica tubes have carton double box packaging, not the wood box as shown in picture below due to customs wood product import regulations. 

As direct competition to Shuguang generic clear glass tubes, this new Psvane HiFi series is developed and manufactured by Psvane Audio in China. Psvane Audio is formed by the original R&D team of high end Shuguang Treasure tubes after they left Shuguang in 2011.

High performance-to-price ratio. These tubes will give you a solid back up for your current stock tubes in your amplifier, at a very affordable price range. Plus they offer warmer sound than many Russian tubes. Click here to view detail.

You may forward the live ‘for sale’ link of the vendor’s listing to us through the ‘contact us’ form.

Instructions and procedures:

1. Copy and paste the live link into the message (the link must be live – it cannot be a ‘completed listing’ from eBay from the past)

2. Use “subject: vacuum tubes price matching” in your message

3. Send by email only – we do not accept phone-in price matching request.

Terms and conditions:

1. Price matching is for same quality grade tubes only.

2. Price matching will match the warranty and return policy of the ‘other seller’ on delivered price. Our website price includes free shipping worldwide so be sure to compare price with shipping included, not net price of the product.

3. Price matching will revoke your privilege of other concurrent promotional offers from us on the same item.

4. Price matching is solely at our discretion. It’s not an obligation from us. If we don’t reply your request in 2 business days, it means we have politely declined the request.

5. If price matching is approved, please save your matching listing as your warranty reference. When you require warranty service, you must present a complete copy of the ‘other seller’s’ warranty and return policy for the listing you provided. If you cannot present such information, our regular warranty term will apply.

6. For scenarios not covered by this list, please contact us for clarification.

Thank you for your understanding.

Psvane is a brand name – owned by a private group of audiophiles inside and outside of China together. Initially some of the members of this private group worked for Shuguang and they were the key R&D personnel for the hugely popular ‘black bottle’ Shuguang Treasure series.

As the Treasure tubes became popular and in demand, the profit sharing arrangement between the key development personnel and the quasi-government controlled Shuguang Group started to become out of balance, which eventually resulted in earlier 2011 the sales rights of Treasure tubes were officially removed from this group of key R&D personnel. This event has triggered the formation of Psvane brand to maximize financial return on their tube expertise. A separate company called ‘Heng Yang Electronics’ is also later formed for Psvane tube production. The company has trade name as ‘Psvane Audio’ and is a registered entity in Hong Kong.

Where are the Psvane tubes were made?

Initially when the relationship with Shuguang hasn’t completely gone sour yet, the Psvane tubes were made by Shuguang tube factory under contract. When Shuguang cut off the R&D team from profit sharing on Treasure tubes, many of the R&D and production members decided to leave Shuguang to join the new Psvane Audio to become investors and profit sharing employees.

In May 2011 with the efforts of the R&D team, a small scale production facility was set up close to Shuguang to start producing large tubes such as 845 and 211′s.  Grant Fidelity visited the facility in September 2011 when it is on last stage of commissioning before production.

In Oct 2011, Psvane Audio made another major movement by buying out all the equipment and production team of Guiguang Tube Factory in southern China. Coming with the Guiguang buy-out deal is the ex Chief-designer of Shuguang, who left Shuguang before Psvane Audio was born to help revive Guiguang  since 2010. (If you don’t know who is Guiguang, read my post here).

With Guiguang facility under Psvane Audio control and ownership, now Psvane Audio is on the way to develop and launch a full range of new high quality tubes.

What tubes does Psvane Audio make? 

From the initial Psvane T-series vacuum tubes, the new Psvane Audio will have multiple series of tubes and related products available to the market:

Vacuum tubes: including 3 series

• T series (the high end black bottle tubes) – started production since 2010 first by Shuguang under contract, now by Psvane themselves
• HiFi series (the affordable clear glass tubes for everyone) – started production since Nov 2011. Great for replacing your stock tubes coming with the amp. Thicker glass enclosure, improved base and pin on some models over the Shuguang generic tubes.
• Western Electric Replica Series (WE series) – these tubes are created with materials from the same source as the original WE tubes (wonder why the WE Re-issue from USA never become reality again?) and they are 1:1 100% replica, not just on technical specs, but also on appearance. They will let you share a piece of the legendary history Western Electric tubes and re-live the glory of vacuum tubes era. First model now available is the highly sought after 100% replica WE300B. Other models will be added over time.

A: T-series is further split to two sub-grade based on Psvane Audio’s own test results: T-Classic Grade (OK to good, less expensive) and T-Collection Grade (better to best, most expensive). This grading criteria is similar to Shuguang Treasure tubes split to Standard and Premium grade based on factory test results.

B: HiFi series: These tubes are in direct competition with generic Shuguang clear glass tubes. They are made with different (cheaper) materials compared to the T-series, in clear glass enclosure, with less strict testing criteria than the T-series. These tubes are developed for affordable average consumer market and tube amplifier manufacturers to be pre-packaged with tube amps for sale.

Packaging: HiFi series tubes are packed in dark blue paper box individually. It is easy to be identified from the T-Classic series although packaging the same – one tube is black bottle; the other is clear glass.

Price: the lowest priced Psvane tubes out of factory.

Pricing comparison of the T-Classic, T-Collection and HiFi series tubes: 

Take 300B as example and let index 300B-T-Collection grade as 100 points, below is the approximate pricing difference:

• 300B-T-Collection black bottle: 100 points
• 300B-T-Classic black bottle: 80 points
• 300B HiFi clear glass: 40 points

There are difference in sound quality and build quality among the 3 tube grades. Other tube model pricing difference among the 3 grades may be slightly different from the above.

C: WE Replica Series: more information is to be released on this series. Right now only test runs in small quantity. We have yet to confirm the quality and sonic signature.

Besides vacuum tubes, Psvane Audio also contract other parties to make high end Teflon film Copper Foil high end capacitors to compete with V-Cap on the market. A series of tube amps are also available with flagship model being the SET Parallel T845 monoblocks and T417 pre-amplifier with separate power supply.

How the Psvane tubes sound, compared to the popular Treasure tubes? 

In short, Psvane comparable models of tubes sound as good as, or even a touch better than the Treasure tubes in the top end extension. Below is the equivalent comparison between the two brands:

• Psvane T-Classic Grade = Treasure Factory Standard Grade
• Psvane T-Collection Grade = Treasure Factory Premium Grade
• Psvane HiFi Series = Shuguang Generic clear glass tubes

What is going to happen with Treasure tubes?

Going forward, likely Treasure tubes will be still made and sold by Shuguang to the market. There is no obvious reason for Shuguang to drop the line when they monopolize the sales right and capture 100% profit.

Grant Fidelity has been closely working with the Treasure R&D team (who now is Psvane Audio) since the Treasure Z-series was born in 2008. We have achieved great quality control of Grant Fidelity tube orders and gained solid reputation among our customers for providing consistent Grant Fidelity Grade A tubes (best of the best – selected from the Premium factory grade /Collection grade) with premium purchase price (no free lunch – Grant Fidelity pay extra price premium for our factory orders to encourage and entice factory to provide us the best of the best. We have $6000 worth of tube testing equipment with Psvane Audio team specifically for Grant Fidelity order processing).

Grant Fidelity will continue our successful path to support the Psvane Audio team for their original innovation in creating black bottle tubes. Going forward, the Treasure series will be phased out once our current Treasure tube stock is sold out and all models will be under Psvane brand.

Grant Fidelity choose not to continue with the Treasure series because we do not have the same commitment from quasi-government controlled Shuguang to control quality at the same level for us after the majority of the R&D development team has left. Many decisions at Shuguang are not made 100% for business reason – there is heavy political and bureaucratic influence to maximum profit during the management contract term rather than for customers’ best interest and long term branding. This may change over time if Shuguang is under severe competition pressure to change the way they do business – but it will take quite some time.

p.s. There is no English website from Psvane Audio yet. I will update as much as possible from Chinese publications. No official factory pictures released yet but I have visited both Psvane production facilities in Sept 2011, the craft shop in Chashang and Guiguang in southern China (which will be completely moved to Changsha in 2012) – great setup, in some cases even better than the 50 years old Shuguang tube factory. Mostly importantly, the people there have spirit to make great tubes for their passion, and of course for their investment return too.

Grant Fidelity will continue our efforts in streamlining distribution / shipping / logistics of tube orders and in the meantime, most importantly, continue our close monitoring and controling quality of top Grant Fidelity Grade A tubes for worldwide tube lovers.

Happy tube shopping and happy listening,

Rachel @ Grant Fidelity

Gui – is the abbreviation of GuangXi province – just west of GuangDong province where 90% of Chinese Hi-Fi is made and probably 60% consumed. Xi – means West, Dong means East in Chinese language.

Guang – means ‘light’ in Chinese language. So Guiguang is light (bulbs) from GuangXi province. It was established in 1960′s in the city of Liuzhou as military factory for south west region of China. It was closed permanently in 2000. In 2006, a group of investors bought out all the equipment of Guiguang and moved them to just outside of Guangzhou in Guangdong province, hoping to capitalize on the highly booming hi-fi tubes market. However, as the investors are business people not tube making guru and all workers had to be newly trained, Guiguang ran into many quality issues of their initial production runs although they have decent production equipment. The re-located Guiguang didn’t make profit for years then the investors decided to give it a boost by hiring away Shuguang’s Chief Designer in 2010 to try to turn the business around.

Guiguang launched a few models of tubes in 2010 under the Shuguang ex-chief designer’s leadership; however, as tube making isn’t just about one person’s skill – it’s a group efforts including highly experienced assembly workers who are still on learning curve at Guiguang, Guiguang tubes on the market are made up with various quality levels and feedback is mixed with positive and negative experiences. It doesn’t appear any sellers out of China have applied any screening of quality of the Guiguang tubes before they ship out to buyers worldwide, some buyers in the western world got good tubes raving about it, others got lemons and swear they are again ‘Chinese junk’.

Guiguang was in difficult time when trying to train workers and keeping up with paying back investors at the same time. So when the buy-out offer came from well-unded Psvane Audio, the merge becomes a win-win to both sides.

When you buy a Guiguang tube from a vendor (there are fair amount of Guiguang tubes out there from all sorts of online vendors, made in various time of the 5 years of re-located Guiguang), try to buy from someone who knows what they are doing and be honest to stand behind their sale. You never know what you get because it had been a bumpy road for Guiguang since it opened door for production in 2006 until being bought out in Oct 2011 by Psvane Audio.

“Greetings,
I bought a quad of the Shuguang Black Treasure 6CA7′s from you recently and love them. They are exceptional tubes, absolutely killing the EH 6CA7 and Tung Sol reissue EL34′s I’ve tried.”

“Put in the 12AX7 Psvane today replace Raytheon 1962 nos tubes .  The clarity of the psvane blew me away, wow…”

“Hi again Rachel. I received a pair of premium grade A of 12AU7-T and 12AX7-T yesterday from Grant Fidelity of course and installed them in my Audio Space Line 3.1 preamp. Wow, the sound of the intruments ringing (extended), vocals much clearer with timbre improved, bass more solid, very musical and I could hear intruments that is not obvious previously. Great bang for bucks.”