Category: – 845 all types

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

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

‘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.

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

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

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.

Customer feedback on GF Premium Tubes:

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

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).

Hear what the cable pro said about [Linlai™ Global] E-845….. ‘real keepers!’

Posted adminPosted in Recent News, Purchase Guide, - 845 all types

Eric D. from France is an industry pro specialized in ultra high end cabling. His audition skills are professional and field proven, and here is what he said about after owning a pair of [Linlai™ Global] E-845 top grade tubes:

“The Linlai E-845s are very nicely built. You can tell by looking inside
the glass tube that they are manufactured with care. When brand new,
they performed nicely, but it was after about 120 to 150 hours that they
really came alive. They really need that burn-in time to reveal their
full potential. I’m not the patient type, but this time I was glad I
waited.

All the qualities the best 845s are renowned for are there. Let’s talk about dynamics first : a bit timid during the burn-in time, dynamics become quite exceptional after 100hrs and when tubes and amp reach their optimal operating temperature. They are extremely fast, with lots of impact and speed, speed and more speed. Extension in the bass is quite impressive and treble is exactly what you expect : not a trace of harshness but lots of details. Midrange is just exceptional, voices come alive to a point that I’ve very rarely experienced before. The timbres of acoustic instrument are very real, and that is quite obvious on violin or cello.

Soundstaging is outstanding, both in depth, width and accuracy. And there’s air between the instruments, something you can only hear when you are in the presence of real high-end gear. Pitch-black silence is another telltale sign of that.

On rock or blues, you can easily identify what guitar or amp is being played. A Strat sounds like a Strat, and there’s no mistaking a Les Paul or a Tele for anything else.

Comparing them to a pair of RCAs a friend brought around, the Linlai E-845s did at least as good as them in all fields, but they have a greater sense of immediacy, something that makes you feel more connected to the music….

Thanks a lot Rachel, those tubes are real keepers!

Cheers,

Eric”

LINLAI™ 845-DG: “Turned my system into the best I have ever experienced…”

Posted adminPosted in Reviews by Tube Model, - 845 all types

Feedback received from our long time customer Barry H. in Vancouver, Canada:

“I now own Space-Tech Laboratory SE-845-100W mono blocks that are single ended DHT pure class A triode OTL power amplifiers that were designed and hand built in Vancouver.  They came with Psvane 845 Hi-Fi tubes and I was very happy with the sonics. Unfortunately, the adhesive holding the base to the glass failed after a year so I went looking for replacements and found Grant Fidelity’s website where I bought a set of Psvane WE845 tubes.  They are great tubes but I couldn’t find the correct configuration of preamp tubes to make music the way I liked.  I then ordered a pair of Psvane 845-TII Black Special Edition tubes that provided the warm texture that I enjoy.

Over the last year, I have upgraded my digital front with a KT-150 based upsampling DAC, re-clocker, switch and linear power supplies to the point where I was suspecting that the Black Special 845 tubes were holding back my system’s potential.  I went back to Grant Fidelity and found the new tube manufacturer, Linlai.  My logic was that if a group of Engineers left Shuguang to form Psvane, who are now a premium manufacturer, then the group who left Psvane to form Linlai must believe they can produce products at or better than Psvane.  Rachel’s honesty about their warranty was all I needed to order the factory grade version of the Linlai 845-DG.

After the 845-DG arrived I listened to them for 2 hours and then began the burn-in process for 7 days, listening each evening for about an hour.  They did improve until the 150-hour mark to the point that I did not hear an improvement at 175 hours.  My impressions of the 845-DG vs the Psvane 845-TII (Black Special Edition) after 175 hours are:

I call them(Linlai 845-DG) 300B tubes that were fed performance enhancing drugs!  Smooth, delicate, air, no harshness and wonderful dynamics. A blacker background with a wider and deeper soundstage with clarity of all instruments.  I can discern a cedar top guitar from a maple one. Cymbals and bells float with a long decay. Bass has the articulation and warmth that I crave so, in comparison, the Psvane 845 T-II sounds like they are wrapped in a Kashmir sweater that must be smearing some details. The vibration of strings on upright bass and piano are easily heard. My addiction to snare drum rim shots is satisfied.

These 845-DG tubes have turned my system into the best I have ever experienced in my home and I couldn’t be happier. They and can lay claim to being expertly designed and built!

Barry H., Vancouver”