Mid price 300B valves

[bumpy]

I want to get some new production 300B valves at a price of up to about £300 per pair

Lead candidates seem to be

JJ £260pp
Electro Harmonix EH £158pp
Electro Harmonix Gold Grid £192pp
Genalex Gold Lion £249pp
Brimar £196pp (Possibly Softek sourced?)

Any opinions or alternatives. Thanks

[Opti-cal]

I want to get some new production 300B valves at a price of up to about £300 per pair

Lead candidates seem to be

JJ £260pp
Electro Harmonix EH £158pp
Electro Harmonix Gold Grid £192pp
Genalex Gold Lion £249pp
Brimar £196pp (Possibly Softek sourced?)

Any opinions or alternatives. Thanks

All the EH models and Genalex are produced at the same factory, or at least they were a few years ago. They are then graded and become "Genalex Gold Lion" if they pass certain parameters. The gold pin EH's do sound better than non gold pin (silly I know) and are pretty much as good as the Gold Lion's. I have the Gold Lion's and I'm very happy with them.

Not much experience with the JJ 300B's but I really like their KT88's. Lovely thick glass and a very well rounded sound.

You have nice kit, I'd go with the Lion's as they're pretty much guaranteed to be the best of the 'non stratospheric' priced tubes.

[bumpy]

All the EH models and Genalex are produced at the same factory, or at least they were a few years ago. They are then graded and become "Genalex Gold Lion" if they pass certain parameters. The gold pin EH's do sound better than non gold pin (silly I know) and are pretty much as good as the Gold Lion's. I have the Gold Lion's and I'm very happy with them.

Not much experience with the JJ 300B's but I really like their KT88's. Lovely thick glass and a very well rounded sound.

You have nice kit, I'd go with the Lion's as they're pretty much guaranteed to be the best of the 'non stratospheric' priced tubes.

Excellent feed back thanks Chris. I would very much like to support the new Brimar venture, but can find very little in the way of reviews of their 300B. I have asked some questions on their Facebook page :)

[Ali Tait]

JJ all the way IMO in that price bracket.

[Ali Tait]

I've read of unreliability with Genalex btw.