Tag Archives: 211-T

by Greg L:

Six Weeks With the New Pavane 211 Tubes

I had an opportunity to replace a pair of NOS RCA VT4-B (211) tubes in my Opera Consonance Cyber 211 amps with the new Pavane (Psvane) 211 tubes for six weeks this summer. I ran these tubes for a total of 67 hours during this period and have the following observations:

For the first three hours the Pavanes were rather harsh and a little spitty. Bias, which I set at the recommended 4.8 volts jumped around a little for the first couple hours and then settled down nicely and remained pretty steady for the remainder of the time I tested the tubes. After 3 hours the Pavanes began to sweeten up and open up to an extent I never heard with the stock Shuguang 211 tubes that came with the amp. Good clear sound stage, wonderful mids and treble, but bass lagging a bit when compared to NOS RCA and GE VT4-C tubes which I’ve listened to extensively in the same setup. Given the RCA VT4-B’s reputation as the premier NOS 211 tube this was not unexpected. These tubes seemed to plateau after 3 hours with the sound unchanged to my ears for another 37 hours.  Read more...