Joint effort between Audio Note UK and Psvane, amazing new 211 and 300B tubes

Thanks for your observations. You ran them against a couple of heavy hitters - the Elrog valves (the new series) were highly praised.

 

The Elrogs I have are from around 2 years ago so not the very latest. I know Elrog make a Molybdenum 211 now but I haven't read much on those and they are nearly 3 times the price (€2700) of the AN's which are £960 for a factory matched pair. I have to say that the Psvane 211 T2's are very fine for asking price. But the AN's are magical!

 

It was mentioned here that a 300B would come with molybdenum...are there any more insides on this ? I could not find any hint on the audio note site...

 

I had a pair arrive today but still in the box until later this week. A lot of the development work financed by AN was done in conjunction with Klaus at Elrog and then assumed by a subsequent company after Elrog was abandoned by Klaus and the financial disaster it had become. The relationship with Psvane is a quite good fit in terms of continuing the metallurgy and knowledge already known by AN at that stage and then finding a trustworthy manufacturer to complete the process. Up till now I have only used the old school Elrog 211 tubes in the Ongaku Kensei I have so it will be interesting to hear how they compare.

 

Hi Blitz,

We are currently testing 5 different coatings on the 4300Es to make sure we cover all angles and make the best possibly sounding 300B equivalent with Molybdenum anode, I expect we will know by end of January 2019, after which we will place the first order, so late March - early April 2019 would be a good guess.

Sincerely,
Peter

 

I just got mine and like others have said, they are amazing. This is especially true since, here in the U.S, they are approximately 1/3 the price of the Elrog moly-plate tubes (the 242,Prices ) and ~ 60% of the price of the standard Elrog (ER211).

While I have not heard the Elrog moly plate tubes, I have had the ELrog ER211S for a few years so could only compare the 4242e and the ER211.
As I told Peter and some others:
1) the attacks on a drum are much cleaner and more detailed on the Hugh Masekla "Hope" album.
2) the mid range is richer
3) the bass is more detailed
4) female voices on the Mendelssohn "MidSummer Night's Dream" are much more articulated.
5) there is more "air" around the music, giving much more 3 dimensionality to it.
6) On the E. Power Biggs recording of the Bach 4 great toccata and fuges in the Freiburg cathedral (on 7.5ips/4 track tape), all of the above were there in spades.

And this was with only a few hours on them.

Peter has definitely hit a winner with these!

We then put the Elrogs back in and the music was very two-dimensional/flat and lacked the precision and air of the 4242Es.

 

This aligns closely with the upcoming WE300B release. I might have to buy both

 

What a fun job you have.

 

Updated:

AN-845E
AN-845E Audio Note (pair) — AN Shop

AN-4300E review:
Audio Note UK 4300E output tube

AN-4242E
AN-4242E Audio Note (pair) — AN Shop

Audio is glowing!
No other AN valves available at this time.

 

Pretty sure I see available also:

AN-4300E

And as far as I know those are the only three AN branded tubes?