GF-Select 6SN7SE MKII: ‘Totally incredible details in the sound stage and voices’

Posted Posted in - 6SN7 / CV181, - 6SN7 Tube Purchase Guide, - GF-Select 6SN7SE Tubes, Purchase Guide, Reviews by Tube Model

Feedback we received from a recent customer Donald M. via email, which includes comparison between ‘GF-Select 6SN7SE MKII vs. Psvane Summit 6SN7’:

“I just wanted to tell you about the tubes (6SN7SE MKII) that I got from you. I have around 30 6SN7’S and CV181-Z’S old and new. I also have a pair of Psvane Summit 6SN7‘S. The Psvanes are louzy sounding, very scratchy. The best sounding tube’s that I have are the Shuguang CV181-Z’S. The amp that I using with your tubes is a 300B single ended class A amp I built about eight months ago. It’s number eleven amp that I built over the past 60 year’s. I now have eight hours of burn-in time and me and my wife both can’t believe how awesome it is sounding with these tubes. Totally incredible details in the sound stage and voices. I’m telling a friend about them so that he can get a pair of them. Thanks again for all your help.”

Ship to Europe: Get 50% tax bill rebate

Posted Posted in +++Shipping & Tariffs +++, - Europe: Import Charges Rebate, Recent News, Purchase Guide

European countries request all imports of any amount to be subject to VAT / duty assessment by local authorities.

Post office & couriers in Europe will calculate duty at the time of parcel import based on the value of shipment, and collect it from the receiver at the time of delivery.

By filling in your tax ID on checkout page of your order, it will expedite order processing through customs in Europe. We do not sell data to any marketing agency – this tax ID is only used to create shipping documents to expedite your order customs clearance with your country’s authority. Otherwise your country’s customs have to reach out to you, wait for your response in order to process your order import clearance. This manual process may take extra long time. We strongly recommend you to fill in tax ID in your order to expedite order customs clearance and delivery in Europe.

As each European countries have different VAT rates and/or duty regulations / customs processing fees, we do not include VAT or duty amount in our website pricing.

Most western European countries now have digital customs processing which is fast and efficient – receiver usually gets either SMS text messaging or email notification when VAT/Duty amount is due for payment before a parcel can be released. Please be sure to check your email and/or track the parcel with provided tracking number – you usually can pay for the VAT/Duty bill online before the parcel reaches your local courier depot.


Your order may qualify for 50% rebate of your import charges:

We offer to refund 50% of European import charges (combination of import fees, VAT and duty) up to either 50% of the import charge bill, or 50% of the amount of your country’s VAT, whichever is LESS.

This rebate offer is only valid for items purchase at ‘regular price’, and not valid for ‘on sale’ items, or items purchased with promotional coupons applied. Our pricing and business model cannot sustain ‘discount + rebate’ while still maintain economically viable and sustainable. We appreciate your understanding of this ‘no double dipping’ policy.

Rebate Example 1:

If your country’s VAT rate is 20%, your order item total price (net of insurance and shipping etc) is 500 Euro and you received an import charges bill for the amount of 85 Euro. We will refund you the less of: 1) 50% of import charge bill = 85 Euro X 50% = 42.50 Euro, or 2) 50% of VAT of the item price = 500 Euro X 20% VAT X 50% split = 50 Euro. Your final refund from us will be 42.50 Euro.

Rebate Example 2:

If your country’s VAT rate is 25%, your order item total price (net of insurance and shipping etc) is 1000 Euro. You received an import charges bill for the amount of 320 Euro. We will refund you the less of: 1) 50% of import charge bill = 320 Euro X 50% = 160 Euro, or 2) 50% VAT of the item price = 1000 Euro X 25% X 50% split = 125 Euro. Your final refund from us will be 125 Euro.

How to claim 50% import charges rebate:

This 50% split rebate will only be issued as refund to your original order payment method, upon presenting the official import charge bill issued by your country’s customs, and subject to verification.

The bill can be sent to us as scanned .pdf file or .jpg image and can NOT shown being altered by any means. We do not accept emailed message of ‘I was charged for and paid this and that amount’ or a portion of your credit card bill. It must be the official tax bill from courier or your country’s customs authority, showing the shipment tracking number to match with your order.

Once you have claimed the 50% split rebate, your order is no longer qualified for refund under any circumstances and any amount rebate issued will be sunk cost. Please understand the amount paid to a country’s customs and tax authorities cannot be clawed back by us under ANY circumstance.

We hope the above rebate offer will make international shopping less expensive for our valued European customers.

Psvane Tubes – What Now?

Posted Posted in Recent News, Psvane - What Now?, Purchase Guide

We get questions often about the Psvane branded tubes we used to carry. Here is a post with updates:

The PAST:

Grant Fidelity discontinued direct reselling of Psvane branded vacuum tubes in 2021 due to then declining measurements of the Psvane tubes we received, and no agreement could be reached then with the Psvane factory management. We are further pressured to drop a competitor’s line of products which in fact showed superior measurements than Psvane’s. Grant Fidelity opted for product quality and business independence hence all Psvane inventory were returned to factory in Feb 2021. (Rumor said that Psvane factory was at that time preparing for stock IPO hence sales volume was prioritized over QC. The IPO plan was eventually called off due to financial market regulations were not met.)

What NOW?

Psvane now has adopted a more ‘direct sales’ mode and abolished much of the previous distribution method. Namely:

  • Two (2) new exclusive series only sold by Psvane factory direct – Summit Series (the ultra high end) and Horizon Series (the mid-range everyday value products) – both are sold by Psvane’s own e-Commerce store on Amazon and AliExpress. They are NOT sold by any previous resellers or dealers in and out of China. Psvane tube factory capitalizes on 100% profit of these two series derived from the entire supply chain, ie. from factory production all the way to retail post-sale support.

  • Other previous high end series, such as ACME and Western Electric Replica (now called Legend) series, are still sold through conventional resellers in China and abroad, and many Chinese vendors resell to overseas market (although technically not authorized but still commonly circumvented by many vendors) via AliExpress.

  • Even older series such as T & TII Series (grey bottle) and Z-series (black bottle) are said to be bought out by certain larger Chinese dealers with lumpsum performance deposits paid into to the factory coffer upfront, and those tubes are sold also on AliExpress platform to overseas market.

  • Psvane in the past produced multiple wholesale lots of ‘dealer exclusive’ tubes such as ‘Cossor by Psvane’ and those tubes are also re-sold through the ‘buy-out dealers’ and their sub-sellers on AliExpress etc.

In summary, LOTS of Psvane tubes are on the market from various channels and all levels of vendors – overseas customers really need to use good judgement to purchase from reliable and credible resellers.

Below are the Psvane Summit Series offerings – directly sold by Psvane’s own Amazon Store. We deem Amazon as a credible and reliable vendor channel as it is indeed factory direct and likely return and warranty are handled relatively generous by the tube factory directly. Your purchase on Amazon is protected by Amazon policies which are extra layers of certainty of the uncertain tube world.

(Disclaimer: Grant Fidelity is sharing the product links for information in the role of Amazon affiliates only – we do NOT provide Psvane product consultation, order fulfillment nor post-sale warranty on any Psvane branded products.)

  • With the launch of the SUMMIT series, we are confident in declaring—we have reached the summit. Through our latest break…
  • The PSVANE SUMMIT series features our innovative HPC Coating, a proprietary multi-layer composite coating technology dev…
  • The PSVANE SUMMIT 845 embodies PSVANE’s advanced approach to thermal management and sound fidelity in high-power vacuum …
  • With the launch of the SUMMIT series, we are confident in declaring—we have reached the summit. Through our latest break…
  • The PSVANE SUMMIT series features our innovative HPC Coating, a proprietary multi-layer composite coating technology dev…
  • The PSVANE SUMMIT 300B vacuum tube inherits all the advantages of PSVANE’s high-end 300B models, such as deep, elastic b…

If an Amazon order is placed within 24hrs from clicking a link in this post, Amazon may compensate us a very small percentage (1-3%) for directing business to the Amazon platform, at zero cost to the buyer. This small token of compensation for referring business to Amazon platform does NOT imply we are reselling Psvane products. All Psvane product links in this website are for our website visitors’ convenience to track down credible sources for products. We have opted out to be a Psvane tubes reseller as of Feb 2021.

  • With the launch of the SUMMIT series, we are confident in declaring—we have reached the summit. Through our latest break…
  • The PSVANE SUMMIT series features our innovative HPC Coating, a proprietary multi-layer composite coating technology dev…
  • The PSVANE SUMMIT KT88 not only fully meets the demands of audio systems for power, control, and dynamic headroom, but a…
  • With the launch of the SUMMIT series, we are confident in declaring—we have reached the summit. Through our latest break…
  • The PSVANE SUMMIT series features our innovative HPC Coating, a proprietary multi-layer composite coating technology dev…
  • The PSVANE SUMMIT 6SN7 builds on PSVANE’s extensive experience in dual-triode vacuum tube design, delivering balanced an…

Why buy E-845 Top 10% Best Grade from Grant Fidelity?

Posted Posted in - 845 all types, Purchase Guide, Tube FAQ & Must Read

‘Why buy Top 10% Best Grade tubes from you? There are cheaper price on internet!”

A few top reasons:

  1. Our Top grade tubes have STRONG emission capacity = LONGER tube useful life. (For example: Our top grade Elite E-845 tubes start with minimum 90% full emission up to 105%. Too strong emission beyond 105% might trigger certain amps into a protective shutdown mode hence not usable at all.)

Can all tubes out of factory simply have 100% spot on full emission, since tubes are produced in modern industrial factories? No. This is NOT possible. The electron emission coatings on the tube plate, by nature, are live and cannot be 100% consistent to be of the exact same value. It is not technically possible for tube factories to have tubes produced ONLY with 100% spot on emission.

Chinese National Standard (GB) allows 845 tube emission as low as 70% of full emission or up towards 115% to be still considered Factory QC Pass. Such a wide range of 70% to 115% tolerance is to reduce production waste during the bygone era when tubes were widely used in electronics. Today high end tubes are luxury items for affluent audiophiles. We simply do not think 70% is still considered acceptable for the factory price these high end tubes fetch for.

2. We have years of experience with tube amps and will select the most suitable tubes for you.

Although we do not know ALL amps on the market, our decades of experience with tube amps have allowed us to know many potential pitfalls. We ask you to fill in your amp make and model when placing your order, then we select our known best suitable tubes for your setup. This cannot be done by vendors who simply entice internet shoppers with low prices and ‘pass on factory boxes’.

3. We DEFINE, SCREEN, TEST and Grade tubes for the right quality.

We DEFINE our OWN purchase parameters with the tube factory to control quality outright. (SORRY – these parameters are not published anywhere as they are trade inside information only.)

We SCREEN factory inventory outright by requesting factory to use the same test equipment as ours, on top of the industrial scale testers used on the tube factory production line.

We TEST all tubes we receive from factory ourselves, one by one, to confirm factory test results at our own facility.

We GRADE all tubes AFTER our own testing.

For those tubes meeting our Top 10% Best Grade parameters (after our own testing) are offered for premium price, matching to their top quality, to those customers who value quality over cheap price.

For those tubes NOT meeting our Top 10% Best Grade parameters, they are downgraded to Factory QC Pass grade and consequently sold for lower price (matching to their corresponding quality). Keep in mind that our downgraded ‘Factory QC Pass’ tubes were already screened outright from the factory inventory pool before shipping out of factory door, and inherently of higher specifications than the overall ‘Factory Pass’ tubes that are offered all over internet at cheap prices.

Among those downgraded by us to Factory QC Pass, inevitability small portion of tubes are considered ‘rejects’ by our standard, even though tube factory considers them ‘Factory QC Pass’ and shipped to us. These rejects will be returned to tube factory to claim factory warranty by us, and save our customers from the downfall experience.

In summary:

  • We offer top 10% Best Grade tubes at price matching to their quality.
  • We sell HIGH Quality. We do not just sell cheap prices for whatever quality, like many vendors on internet do.

We hope these reasons above will help you with confidence in purchasing with us.

Happy tube shopping.

Grant Fidelity

P.S. The above reasons apply to other ‘Top 10% Best Grade’ tubes such as Linlai Global Western Electric Replica WE845 and other 845 varieties etc.

Why buy Elite E-300B Best Grade from Grant Fidelity?

Posted Posted in Purchase Guide, Tube FAQ & Must Read

‘Why buy Top 10% Best Grade tubes from you? There are cheaper price on internet!”

A few top reasons:

  1. Our Top grade tubes have STRONG emission capacity = LONGER tube useful life. (For example: Our top grade Elite E-300B tubes start with minimum 92% full emission up to 108%. Too strong emission beyond 108% might trigger certain amps into a protective shutdown mode hence not usable at all.)

Can all tubes out of factory simply have 100% spot on full emission, since tubes are produced in modern industrial factories? No. This is NOT possible. The electron emission coatings on the tube plate, by nature, are live and cannot be 100% consistent to be of the exact same value. It is not technically possible for tube factories to have tubes produced ONLY with 100% spot on emission.

Chinese National Standard (GB) allows 300B tube emission as low as 60-65% of full emission or up towards 120% to be still considered Factory QC Pass. Such a wide range of 60% to 120% tolerance is to reduce production waste during the bygone era when tubes were widely used in electronics. Today high end tubes are luxury items for affluent audiophiles. We simply do not think 60% is still considered acceptable for the factory price these high end tubes fetch for.

2. We have years of experience with tube amps and will select the most suitable tubes for you.

Although we do not know ALL amps on the market, our decades of experience with tube amps have allowed us to know many potential pitfalls. We ask you to fill in your amp make and model when placing your order, then we select our known best suitable tubes for your setup. This cannot be done by vendors who simply entice internet shoppers with low prices and ‘pass on factory boxes’.

3. We DEFINE, SCREEN, TEST and Grade tubes for the right quality.

We DEFINE our OWN purchase parameters with the tube factory to control quality outright. (SORRY – these parameters are not published anywhere as they are trade inside information only.)

We SCREEN factory inventory outright by requesting factory to use the same test equipment as ours, on top of the industrial scale testers used on the tube factory production line.

We TEST all tubes we receive from factory ourselves, one by one, to confirm factory test results at our own facility.

We GRADE all tubes AFTER our own testing.

For those tubes meeting our Top 10% Best Grade parameters (after our own testing) are offered for premium price, matching to their top quality, to those customers who value quality over cheap price.

For those tubes NOT meeting our Top 10% Best Grade parameters, they are downgraded to Factory QC Pass grade and consequently sold for lower price (matching to their corresponding quality). Keep in mind that our downgraded ‘Factory QC Pass’ tubes were already screened outright from the factory inventory pool before shipping out of factory door, and inherently of higher specifications than the overall ‘Factory Pass’ tubes that are offered all over internet at cheap prices.

Among those downgraded by us to Factory QC Pass, inevitability small portion of tubes are considered ‘rejects’ by our standard, even though tube factory considers them ‘Factory QC Pass’ and shipped to us. These rejects will be returned to tube factory to claim factory warranty by us, and save our customers from the downfall experience.

In summary:

  • We offer top 10% Best Grade tubes at price matching to their quality.
  • We sell HIGH Quality. We do not just sell cheap prices for whatever quality, like many vendors on internet do.

We hope these reasons above will help you with confidence in purchasing with us.

Happy tube shopping.

Grant Fidelity

P.S. The above reasons apply to other ‘Top 10% Best Grade’ tubes such as Linlai Global Western Electric Replica WE300B and our own GF-Select special edition WE300B/SE etc.

Linlai Global E-845 vs. Psvane ACME 845: ‘almost immediately sense the superiority of the Elites’

Posted Posted in - 845 all types, Purchase Guide, Reviews by Tube Model

Received from customer James H. via email:

“When looking for a review of the Linlai Elite E-845, I could not find anyone who was able to compare it to the Psvane Acme 845, which is the tube’s nearest competitor….

I have the Line Magnetic 845 Premium which uses a pair of 845’s & 300B’s. I will say that the Linlai (Global) Elite E-845s have taken a very long time to sound good for me. It took about 75 hours for me to begin to like them. I do like them quite a bit now after about 100 hours.

I also have a pair of Psvane Acme 845s… which will be up for sale very soon. I did not really have to A/B the Acme’s with the Elite’s to almost immediately sense the superiority of the Elites. The Acme’s were veiled, cloudy, dark, reticent, and very much stuck in the speaker box compared to the Linlai Elite E-845s which have the opposite traits. The Linlai Elite E-845s are just in an altogether different league than the Psvane Acme 845s.

A floating piece of glass inside the tube – What is it?

Posted Posted in - 6SN7 Tube Purchase Guide, Purchase Guide, Tube FAQ & Must Read

If you have been playing with vacuum tubes long enough, you might have run into a situation that a new tube, shipped from a vendor, arrived with a piece of floating glass inside (see reference picture below). What is it? Where does it come from? Is the tube damaged beyond useful?

 

Here is the answer:

  1. This piece of floating glass is a broken-off piece from the tube filament glass stem. See picture below showing where it is exactly broken off from.

 

2. This broken piece is often resulted from the heavy filament structure in vibrating motion during shipping and handling. However, since the tube glass stem is a wide structure supporting the full filament structure – a small piece

broken off from the tip won’t hurt the tube structure’s integrity at all.

3. We see this ‘floating glass’ from TJ Full Music 300B tubes, but not much from other Chinese brand such as Shuguang 300B tubes produced in southern China. Our guess is that the glass supplier for Full Music (located in Northern China) is likely different and glass production technique isn’t exactly the same.

4. This piece of floating glass won’t affect tube function at all and won’t interfere with the vacuum capacity inside the tube. Glass is non-conductive. User only needs to stand the tube up, let the floating piece to fall to the bottom of the tube enclosure, plug the tube into socket vertically, then it is all done!

Customer feedback on GF Premium Tubes:

Posted Posted in - 6SN7 Tube Purchase Guide, - 300B all types, - 845 all types, Purchase Guide

Here is an email feedback we received from customer Thomas L about his personal experience of buying from Chinese vendors vs. Grant Fidelity:

“Hi Rachel,

  Just thought I’d give you a little feedback with my recent purchase.  

  Your tubes are expensive (adding in all the fees and shipping).  I think you would agree as well, although you may argue nothing is cheap with this Audiophile hobby, which I would agree as well. With my recent purchases, I think it was pushing around $2000 CAD.  This was for 5 845s, and two pairs of 300Bs.  Honestly, I had been looking at the GF tubes for a while now, never had the $$ or the guts to pull the trigger as the number of tubes that I need for my amps in total would put a dent in my bank account.  With the boxing day / black friday sales, I figured it would be a good time or timing to replace my existing OEM tubes.  So …. Here’s what I have learned.

  Prior to this purchase, I had been buying tubes online from China or locally from a friend.  But what did I get exactly?
  *  Noisy tubes.  

  *  Tubes that broke after a listening session.  

  *  Tubes that looked like they were shorting out (they were supposed to be new!!!!).

  Then I had to contact my friend or vendor in China to have the tube(s) replaced.  And on one occasion I had to pay duty for the replacement tube.  

  So, after I plugged the GF tubes in my amp(s), I had a moment where I was thinking, “this is what I get for paying a premium price.”  

  The tubes are quiet, like very quiet.  The difference between OEM vs the GF tube is obvious.  I used to think that my amps were noisy, but only after I plugged in the GF tubes, I realized a good amount of noise was actually from the tubes itself. 

  Balanced sound stage.  I am referring to the left and right channels.  With that comes a solid image.  You have vocals that comes directly to you.  I’m particularly picky when it comes to this as I hate to hear vocal lop-sided.

  Last but not least, sound quality.  Smooth, very Smooth but not losing both top and bottom end.

  Overall was it worth it?  The decision is leaning to a Yes.  With the tube and sound quality accounted for.  And most importantly, this is a case where I plugin, dial in and enjoy the music without having to worry too much about reliability (knock on wood, so far so good).  

  Lastly, great service.  Thanks again for the quality products and super fast shipping.

  (Now, I will have to save up again for the next tube upgrades).

Psvane or Linlai™? … Make an informed choice

Posted Posted in - 6SN7 Tube Purchase Guide, Purchase Guide

(The post below has been updated in Dec 2025.)

We have received so many inquires lately from customers asking us to help them to make a choice between the two tube brands out of China. So here is a summary of our take – OBJECTIVELY:

  1. Power of design:

High end product design need vision and dedication. Psvane had a track record of pumping out a few series of high end tubes for the worldwide audiophile upgrade market, since they initially launched ‘Treasure black bottle’ tube series back in 2008 till the recent ACME series.

That original Psvane design team includes the same key personnel who left Psvane to form Linlai. So, Psvane had proven track record. Linlai™ started off with good design strength too. 

Conclusion: 1 for Psvane to 1 for Linlai = Even. We have absolute confidence in Linlai™’s design ability to pump out GREAT hifi tubes. Two brands provide varieties to the market – users can choose based on their own brand preference. 

2. Business focus:

When a business grows, it does tend to increase product offerings to cover more market segments and generate more revenue. Psvane indeed had taken the golden opportunity to expand and filled the market void left by state-owned Shuguang tube factory’s shutdown in 2019 (due to sale of land and relocation – Shuguang now has resumed production in 2023). Psvane even had ambitiously set the stage for expanding into the mass production guitar amp market, which mostly use small signal tubes and EL34/KT88/KT66 etc. (Large triode tubes such as 300B/845 tubes are mostly used by HiFi market.)


Shuguang has resumed production in 2023. Psvane’s market share is certainly being squeezed. More importantly, we think the whole problem of Chinese tubes is about (lacking of) consistent quality. When Psvane grew to cover multiple market segments as Shuguang used to, the quality consistency at Psvane might suffer (this had been unfortunately confirmed by our received Psvane tubes test results before we drop the line in 2021.)

Opposite to Psvane’ aggressive expansion strategy (which was fueled by planned then failed IPO attempt), Linlai set itself as a niche player focusing on HiFi market only and do not appear to aggressively chasing market share at the expenses of quality.

Conclusion: 0 for Psvane, 1 for [Linlai Global] in this round. Psvane tubes quality consistency must be closely observed by diligent buyers.

3. Seeing is Believing. Numbers talk:

We have randomly taken 28 (300B) tubes from each brand that we have received and plotted their emissions. Blue line is Psvane, Orange line is Linlai™. We can clearly see a less deviation with Linlai™ measurements than with Psvane.

What does this chart tell us? It says: We are indeed getting superior quality [Linlai™ Global] tubes with consistent measurements than those we got from Psvane in the past. (Note: We cannot speak for Linlai tubes without [Linlai Global] label, due to lack of first hand measurements.)

In our opinion, those Psvane 300B tubes with plate current less than 45 (75%) should NEVER has been released to outside of China market. (We were told that China’s national standard only requests minimum 36 (60%) emission for 300B tubes – it appears to be reasonable in 1960’s but we don’t agree it should be extended to 2020’s when Chinese tube price has skyrocketed).

4. What if? – The Warranty question:

Both Psvane and Linlai offer a better warranty term than the state owned Shuguang brand used to offer. They are changing the reputation of ‘Made-in-China’ tubes.

Linlai factory backs up their [Linlai™ Global] tubes sold through their own website and their authorized overseas resellers. Buyers tempted by cheaper price and bought the Chinese version of Linlai tubes (it doesn’t have the [Linlai™ Global]) is only covered by their sellers (mostly located in Greater China). 

Conclusion: Buying [Linlai™ Global] tubes does not leave the buyer to hold the bags when problems arise. Consistent quality with [Linlai Global] tubes means less warranty cases – it translates better user experience. 

5. How do they compare, sonically?

We know this is the holy-grail question for audiophiles. But since this comparison is all about being ‘objectively’. We as vendor must leave this question to be answered by the audiophile community.

Objectively, we can shine some lights on Linlai™ design which will add to definite positives to the sonic performance. E-series with molybdenum material produce a much stronger electron emission than other type of plate material such as graphite or hybrid plate, and sustain higher voltage. This translates to more dynamic to the sound, better reliability and longer tube life. DG overhang filament series achieves better vibration control than other filament structures. With all these features, we trust that they are evident to well trained audiophile ears to hear the sonic improvements.

Conclusion: we have been selecting high quality tubes from China for 17 years now. Our past combined experience does tell us that Linlai™ is a brand with great potential for both sonic quality and reliability – so far we have not seen a single defective tube from our 4 Linlai™ shipments, except one tube broken in handling from China to us.

We hope by sharing the above information and data, worldwide music lovers and audiophiles can be confident in making a well informed choice between Psvane and Linlai brands.

Keep in mind: Enjoying music is a journey, so is tube rolling. It’s not a quest for the absolute best. If there were ‘absolute best’ sonic in the audiophile world, we wouldn’t have had today’s numerous HiFi brands competing at audio shows. Pricing is indicative of quality. If a product’s pricing is not in alignment with its quality, it will simply not last long on the market.

Happy Listening.

Rachel@ Grant Fidelity

 

Which 845 tubes to get: The popular upgrade path for Line Magnetic LM-518IA tube amp

Posted Posted in Purchase Guide

Line Magnetic LM-518IA integrated 845 tube amp is the first Chi-Fi amp that was very favorably reviewed by Stereophile back in 2015 and got onto Stereophile’s annual award list later on. It can be considered an achievement milestone for the entire Chi-Fi industry, IMHO.

Before this amp become popular, most 845 amps on the market are monoblocks, which inevitably cost more to produce, more to ship and deliver, which result in less people can afford them. A well made integrated 845 tube amp has brought the retail price mark to below $5000 range. I personally think this is a major contributing factor that has brought Single Ended Triode (SET) 845 amps to the horizon of average consumers.

Of course for every budding audiophile or seasoned music lover, tube rolling is like an addiction – why not try other tubes when there are multiple offerings of 845 tubes from China too?!

We have combed through our past year’s tube order history and come to the statistics of the popular tube upgrade path for this Line Magnetic LM-518IA (now it is called LM-608IA in China, and the western version is LM-845IA):

Most popular (67%): Linlai™ Global Elite Metal Plate E-845

I am not sure if this is to do with FOMO (fear of missing out). 2/3 of our tube upgrade customers went straight to the best of best, also the most expensive 845 tube models we carry, and never looked back! From a vendor’s perspective, the ‘Linlai™ Global E-845 metal plate’ also has zero warranty rate in the entire past 12 months! We will rate its reliability as full 5 star.

Second popular (22%): Linlai™ Global Graphite Plate 845-DG

This tube is a nice upgrade from the commonly used stock 845B tubes from China in almost all new production 845 tube amps. The stock entry level Chinese 845/845B tubes tend to sound dry and harsh without much magic. The 845-DG upgrade tubes offer excellent ‘performance to price’ ratio, aka ‘bang for the buck’, with a unique overhang filament design, coupled with solid graphite plate.

Why is 845-DG not as popular as the more expensive metal plate E-845?

Besides the previously mentioned FOMO mindset, its reliability record is good but not as stellar as the E-845’s zero warranty record, we think the ‘dollar cost per listening day’ for 845-DG really isn’t much lower than E-845 – probably much less than a cup of java. Why not just ‘straight to the point’ could be some customers reason to opt for the E-845 instead.

We have been closely watching the warranty rate trend of 845-DG, and highly suspect some cases are related to users’ amps were not providing the right level of ‘load’ to these graphite plate high power tubes. Please note that ‘underload’ a graphite plate tube over a extended period of time can create excessive gas in the tube, eventually trigger an internal short tube failure. Users are strongly recommended to regularly check the amp bias and keep it in optimal range, besides keeping the amp’s power supply voltage stable with a proper power conditioning device.

Third popular (11%): Linlai™ Global WE845 Replica tubes

Why the ‘Western Electric’ replica version of 845 tubes are not as popular? We think the reason might be western customers do not have the same fetish to ‘Western Electric’ as the eastern customers in Asia do. Western Electric never made a 845 tube – the closest is a 284A, so ‘Western Electric Replica’ doesn’t hold 100% truth as per Chinese tube manufacturers claim. All three tube manufacturers make WE replica 845: namely Shuguang, Psvane and Linlai. The WE Replica tubes are always priced with premium towards the glory of ‘Western Electric’ – so your money goes not just to the tubes, but also to the marketing.

Having said that, WE845 replica is still an excellent tube. Its slim bottom allows it goes into some high end 845 amps such as Nagra brand, while all the other ‘fat bottle’ 845 such as E-845 and 845-DG cannot fit in.

We hope this objective statistical information can help you to narrow down your 845 tube choice for the Line Magnetic 845 tube amp!

We unfortunately cannot give sonic description of each tube with this amp (or any amp) – a system’s final sound will be very much influenced by the speakers used, and the system synergy, and the subjective opinion of the listeners. We suggest you search on audio forums or facebook user groups to find a system similar to yours and read such users’ sonic description, and see if it is to your liking.

Happy Listening.

Rachel@ Grant Fidelity