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I'll try my best to answer your question..

Posted by Sans Nom on January 27, 2000 at 11:45:29:
I'm not sure what you mean by "chinese classic" tubes but from what I know PMC's GD brand of tubes are "sourced" from many tube manufacturing facilities all over China, including the "Valve Art" brand manufacturing plant.
Again depending on how you see it, the "chinese classic" or "no name" brand may be sourced from the same manufacturing plant but from those who failed the initial rack/grading test or with much higher discrepencies. Those who work well and satisfy the initial grading/rack burning test will be marketed as "Valve Art" brand or other brands as well.
Knowing PMC buys whatever tubes they interested in from all over the place and label them GD I'm pretty sure what you see with essentially same internal/external structure and materials from the tubes are sourced from the same manufacturing facilities.
The difference is in the grading process: GD's are almost the top 5~25% of the tubes from the burning rack where as others such as "classical chinese" or "no name" are the mid to lower 30% of the batch. I believe Valve Art ranges somewhere between the middle.
I recalled that chinese entrepreneurs and Japanese busniessman made some sort of deal in collaboration with several chinese tube manufacturing facilties: they invest their money and in return they get a very stable tube supply at a reasonable cost with fairly high consistency and quality (again grading applies). CR and Valve Art are just some of these new "corporate entrepreneurship" that's working nicely under this blanket of Socialistic society.
Jacques.
p.s. PMC kept their sourcing schemes pretty much behind "closed doors" and only those who dealt with them knows about what's going on. That's why they don't tell you the whole story.