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Shuguang Treasure 'Black Bottle' 300B-Z (MSRP US$600/pair- Premium Grade A)
List Price: USD $ 600
Price: USD $ 510
Weight: 1.5 lb
True "Treasure" as a result of Shuguang's 50-years' of expertise in vacuum tube design and production.
- High Polymer Compound Carbon (HPCC) coating is for the first time used on vacuum tube production. Compared to traditional carbon spray technology, HPCC coating will allow greater concentration of electrons, enhance and maintain stability of the electron flow, maximize "secondary electron emission surpression" from the glass enclosure, in turn reduce effects of electron swirl which generates internal noises from the vacuum tube itself.
- 'Super Alloy' technology is for the first time used in constructing vacuum tube. 'Super Alloy' technology was invented and first used in aviation, aerospace, military and other high-tech area. After 3 years of testing under extreme conditions, Shuguang has successfully adopt such technology in vacuum tube constructing to achieve directional solidification and single crystallization, greatly improving the ability of electron emission and electron current stability.
- Improved vacuuming technology during production process to clear signal background - Key assembling process is manually completed by a small number of senior technicians with 30+ years of experience.
- 60 extra parts selection and matching processes are adopted to ensure premium quality tubes, compared to the Shuguang generic clear glass tubes.
- Premium Grade matched right out of factory to serve outside of China market
- Interchangable with 300B family of tubes for output of 10w
- Suggested burn-in time 150-300 hours. Most changes happen in the first 150 hours.
A bit about Shuguang:
Shuguang is the oldest and largest tube manufacturer in China, established in 1958 by engineers educated and trained in the United States in the 30-40s. Shuguang's vacuum tube production accounts for the world's 40% total tube output nowadays, either under their own brand "Shuguang" or under OEM brands. Generic Shuguang tubes come in clear glass enclosure. The Treasure series are only released in Dec 2008 to celebrate Shuguang's 50th anniversary and technology advancement. Grant Fidelity is the very first international distributor of Shuguang Treasure series outside of China. All Shuguang tubes distributed by Grant Fidelity comes with standard 30 days warranty plus a 12-month optional extended warranty.
Premium vs. Standard; Grade A vs. Grade B
All Treasure tubes from Grant Fidelity is of Premium Grade export quality from Shuguang and they are superior to those sold out of China or Hong Kong - which are intended for Chinese market and are commonly referred as Standard Grade. Standard Grade treasure tubes have much wider variance in specifications and could deviate from the tube's designed specs by up to 40%. If you are looking for first class quality tubes and want protect your investment, we strongly recommend you to buy 'Premium Grade' only. The Treasure Premium Grade tubes imported by Grant Fidelity are further divided to Premium Grade A (perfect matching on every aspect and strong emission) and Premium Grade B (less than perfect matching in certain aspects such as plate current, transconductance or minor internal gas, slightly less emission. However we guarantee that none of these minor weakness will interfere with the tube's normal operation and pose no safety hazards to your amp. Grade A tubes are sold with a price premium over that for Grade B. Even if you purchase 'Premium Grade B' tubes from Grant Fidelity, you are getting better tubes than the Chinese 'Standard Grade' sold over eBay type of places. Buyer beware.
If you need to purchase optional 12-month extended warranty for Treasure tubes, please order it separately by clicking here.
Important Readings! About Chinese vacuum tube production and distribution:
1. Are all vacuum tubes created equal?
2. Grant Fidelity 5-step 5-spec QC on vacuum tubes
3. Should I buy Shuguang Treasure tubes from Grant Fidelity?
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| shuguang treasure tube spec 300B-Z.pdf | 142.81 KB |
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Comments
New review by TNT-Audio.com: sonically as good as KR 300B
Grant Fidelity provided a pair of sample Premium Grade A 300B-Z to TNT-Audio.com. Seasoned reviewer Geoff Husband says:
"If you are looking for a more even performance then the three candidates are the KR's, the Shuguang and WE re-issues. The latter are very expensive, and to my mind offer nothing over the other two. The Shuguang and KR sound very similar, but the Shuguang build quality is inferior to the KR's. The decision then comes down to availability and price – the KR's are more expensive but beautifully made, but not always available. The Shuguang on the other hand are less well made, but at least as good sonically and, depending on market, cheaper."
Read full review here: http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/shuguang_treasures_300b_e.html
Better than TJ 300B/C and Sophia 300B carbon plate
300B-Z vs. TJ 300B/n
from customer Doron O by email: "Hello, Tubes arrived and are playing along. I do not think they are going back to you anytime soon...:-) Very good from the get go. Compared to the existing TJ 300B/n Mesh Plates the SG 300B-z have massive bass, they sound smoother, more relaxed, mid range is fuller (more lush) yet clean - more meat on the bones so to speak. Very seductive and un-fatiguing tubes, exactly like the experience Ian presented in the forum."
More from Doron O in Feb 2010:
"Just wanted to share I put about another 15-20 hours on the tubes and they do get better.
Compare Shuguang treasure 300B-Z to JJ 300B
- from customer Swimjay:
"Here are some additional impressions from a new 300B Z owner, with more to follow as the tubes continue to burn in. [Associated equipment includes Cambridge Audio 840C CD player w/Dexa clock and non-standard output IC, ef86-based home made line stage, home made dual mono 300B SET amps based on Jack Elliano's DRD design, Mapleshade interconnects and speaker wire, not-yet-released newly designed vibration dissipation devices under all electronics, and very,very highly modified Quad 63's. These speakers are not normally associated with low power amps, but in this incarnation have such a wide dynamic range that they sound great. That is, they don't play very loud, but retrieve low-level detail so far below the range of a normal loudspeaker they don't need to play loud to be satisfying.]
I've been using JJ 300Bs, and all comparisons that follow are with those.
Right out of the box the tubes are agreeable, a bit modest (not polite), even, for the first 10 minutes, slightly pinched sounding. But quickly, the sound grows more, for want of a better word, lovely. In reading Ian's thoughts above, I was afraid I might find an overall euphonic warmth, but this was not the case. The initial presentation is unambitious, as if no chances were being taken, but very unstrained. No one area calls out its excellence, but the overall sense is very comfortable--it doesn't seem as if there's going to be any suffering during the break-in period.
In a very short time--less than 5 hours--the dynamics become less constrained, individual instruments become more embedded in their surrounding space, and, at about 6 hours, one is occasionally aware that a performer is standing on a floor, something the JJ's could never quite communicate (the JJ's have easily in excess of 2000 hours of playing time.) Already, for classical music, I would rather listen to these than to the JJ's. For rock, they have less "slam" (an over-used, and strange, audio review term), and less deep bass. At this stage they sound "lower-bandwidth" than the JJ's, but the flip side of that is that they also sound less edgy, less white.
They show a greater ease at resolving lower midrange, upper bass information. So for example, if a cello and the lower strings of a violin occur together, each instrument retains its harmonic structure more completely and their sound combined is richer harmonically.
I think a part of their magic--and already they're magical--is that the Shuguangs seem to track very well subtle variations in pitch and amplitute. A tremolo or vibrato has almost as much reality as a note played with no vibrato. And individual violin notes don't oscillate subtly between sour and brittle, but stay centered at their appropriate sweetness. So there's a way in which the brain relaxes, and yields to the music.
With some music, when everything was very well set up, the JJ's might seem to "pierce the veil", and a kind of hyper-acute focus momentarily coincided with true musicality. The rest of the time one always felt a slight, or more than slight, unease. The range of CD's one wanted to listen to was narrower than is already the case with the Shuguangs.
More later."
Original post is here: http://grantfidelity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1121#1121
_________________
"I discovered a great (maybe the greatest) 300B tube"
- from customer Lucian R. in California:
"I just wanted to let you know that yesterday I exchanged all the tubes in my amplifier for ones I received from you.
I am impressed with the sound and if the tubes sound like this immediately from the box I can imagine how they will sound after a couple hundred of hours....
Once again thank you for the excellent service..."
Follow up review published on AudioCircle:
"Hello members - I discovered a great (maybe the greatest) 300B tube and wanted to share a short review with you (I published it few minutes ago on Audiogon)...
Here we go:
I am an owner of VAC Renaissance 70/70 amplifier that I had for the past 12 years. The set-up of my audio system is quite minimalistic and I am so happy with it that I did not change any major components for several years with exception of the digital source.
System: Martin Logan original CLS IIA speakers with updated power supply, two Marti Logan Depth subwoofers, Yamamura Millennium 5000 interconnects, Stealth Ultimate Ribbon speaker cables and APL modded Denon 3910 CD player.
I am so familiar with the sound of my system, that I am able to discern any changes generated by different cables or low level tubes. This leads me to the subject of this review: 300B output tubes.
Shuguang Treasure ?Black Bottle? 300B-Z is my third set of tubes, the previous ones being VAC tested Golden Dragon and JJ/Tesla. I would hesitate to write this review if the difference in the sound of the system after installation of Shuguang Treasure 300B-Z was not so profound.
Original Golden Dragon tubes sounded nice, warm and musical ? unfortunately they did not last for a long time and after 2 years started to sound quite dull. JJ/Teslas were much cleaner sounding in my opinion, although not as musical as Golden Dragons.
Enter the Shuguang Treasure 300B-Z: it's a revelation! This tube does everything right ? the bass is powerful and tight, midrange smooth and liquid, upper frequencies silver and open. It is amazingly musical, with exquisite tonal balance.
What surprised me most was Shuguang?s presentation of space ? I did not expect that a set of tubes can have such an impact on the soundstage, increasing perception of depth and width and allowing musical images to float freely without any sense of confinement.
As extra bonus you get the light show at night: beautiful purple-bluish glow emanating from the top of black glass enclosures, much nicer looking than a traditional fireplace?
Shuguang Treasure 300B-Z is available from Grant Fidelity in Canada (www.grantfidelity.com). Grant Fidelity provides tube matching and excellent service, immediate responses to emails and telephone calls.
Original post is here: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=69082.0
Fabulous - feedback from our customer in Russia
Original post was on AudioCircle:
From the very first moment, it is clear that they are the TUBES on my Audion Silver Night 300 B power amp... Very addictive tubes (cannot stop listening), I believe that they deserve more reputation than they used to have, frankly Shuguang in my view were sort of "shubby tubes", but the ones I have got changed my attitude to the company in completely opposite way!
I have started burn in, but even right out of the box they are more better bass, airy trebles and huge sound stage! I can't wait those 300 hours req'd, as I read they would be different tubes...
"Treasure 300b is AMAZING bettering the reissue WE 300b's"
- from Robin Waytt, owner of Robyatt Audio (www.robyattaudio.com)
"The new Shuguang Treasure Series 300B-Z tubes arrived yesterday. These Black bottle carbon coated tubes are kind of unique in appearance, and construction, so I thought I would try them!
I put them in my Tektron switchable 2A3/300B/50 SET integrated, and ran them into the old Altec 604-C's. I must state I have never been a 300B fan , I prefer 2A3's or 45's, however these new tubes could be one of the nicest tubes I have ever heard!!! Incredible detail, with no glare, the traditional 300B, "white" sound is gone, just sweet detail with amazing extension, and air around the instruments!!"
"I compared a loaner pair of engraved base 1930's original Western Electric 300b's, my re-issue Wester Electric 300b's, and a new pair of Grant Fidelity imported Shuhuang Treasury Series carbon coated 300b's. All played in the reference Tektron 300B intergrated using vintage Telefunken AC2 input tubes and NOS Panasonic 274A's rectifiers.
Well first the bad news $3000 does buy you the best 300b ever, the original 300b's have better detail better harmonics and amazing soundstage than the others. However the slight "white" nature of 300b's is still present. Now the good news the Treasure 300b is AMAZING bettering the reissue 300b's by a margin while completly banishing the "white" nature! Fantastic bass, burnished tones and richness in nature characterize this tube. The mid range and vocals are a pure grainless joy. My new SET tube of choice in the Tektron amplifiers-and I DONT LIKE 300b's!!!!"
(feedback provided via email)
300B tube rolling listening comparison
A listening comparison of TJ Full Music 300B tubes and Shuguang 300B tubes done by Grant Fidelity can be found in our forum here:
http://grantfidelity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=281
Tubes include: TJ Full Music 300/n mesh plate, TJ Full Music 300B/C carbon plate, TJ Full Music 300B/SE carbon plate special edition, Shuguang 300B-98 clear glass, Shuguang Treasure 'black bottle' 300B-Z. Please feel free to comment further and add your inputs.
Grant Fidelity