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We Are!

Posted by Gerry E. (A) on April 7, 2020 at 11:05:15

In Reply to: And the winner is????? posted by Ivan303 on April 6, 2020 at 10:12:34:

We now have at least two truly excellent currently manufactured 300Bs to choose from (Takatsuki, WE). So far, they are surprisingly similar in sound. Unfortunately they are among the more expensive 300Bs. Both the wife and I did separate single song A/B comparisons last night. Here are the results followed by some disclaimers:

I went first using Donald Fagen's "On the Dunes" track on his Kamakiriad album. I used this because it's an excellent recording and I own a special promo gold CD copy. Both 300Bs were excellent but I thought the Takatsuki reproduced Fagen's voice a little bit better. Then the wife listened to Justin Hayward's "The Swallow" on his Strange Times album. Again, another excellently recorded album, especially that song. She said she listened for certain things within the song and preferred the second tube (the WE 300B). So, two simple tests and opposite results.

Disclaimers:

1. I knew which tube I was listening to but my wife's test was "blind".
2. In both cases, we preferred the tube that was the second one listened to. I have often wondered if there is some bias in favor of the tube to go second when doing a quick A/B comparison.
3. My 5 month old Takatsuki 300Bs have had a lot more break-in time than the new WE 300Bs (more about that below).
4. It should go without saying that this was a very limited test with only two songs, each one listened to twice in a row with a switch of tubes in between.

I was surprised to get another call from Charles Whitener. He called me to address my concern about the strong but lower test results of these brand new WE 300Bs. He said that they use $100K test equipment to test the tubes before they leave the factory and all of the tubes in the first batch tested extremely strong. He also showed me on my individual test reports how well the tubes did on the life tests. Last, he explained that with the special oxide coating they use on the filaments, these new WE 300Bs could take up to 500 hours to sound their best.

I would also like to note that I take issue with Fred Crowder's review of the Audio Note 4300E on Dagogo. Near the very end he writes "...the AN 4300E's are sonically superior to the Takatsuki 300B... ". He hadn't mentioned anything about the Takatsuki earlier in the review but puts out that statement in the conclusion section. He doesn't give any context or relevant information about how he arrived at that conclusion. For example, when did he compare them, how did he compare them, is he going strictly by memory and why they are "superior" (his word). The only qualifier he gives is that he used his Audio Note (U.K.) Balanced Kegon amps to evaluate the tubes. I wonder how many extra 4300E sales this unqualified and gratuitous single statement will generate for Audio Note?

Gerry

Edits: 04/07/20

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