The listening test of PSVANE WE212 is an exciting experience for me, because since American WECTERN ELECTRIC produced 212 for the first time 90 years ago, there has no country can produce such outstanding large-scale triode tube amplifiers with so exquisite manufacturing skill. The coming out of WE212 means that under the lead of Chinese tubes and Chinese tube manufacturers, music played with vacuum tubes and tube amplifiers has entered into a golden age after 1930s, which made all the Chinese music enthusiasts all proud of it.
“The soul of machines are tubes”, which is the concept that all audio tube enthusiasts hold. For decades, the more HIFI tubes I have used to listen to, the more I realized this is an unchangeable truth. Generally speaking, which degree the final sound qualities belonging to should still be decided by “tubes”, which is also commonly agreed by enthusiasts. Even though there were many types of tubes used in audio in the past, the ones well received by audio designers were more than 10 types at most. Among mainly were classified as triode and pentode , triode types such as 205, 300B, PX4 and so on, pentode types such as 6L6, EL34, 6550 and so on are the relatively familiar brand to audio enthusiasts. The reason of being popular is also based on the outstanding sound performance. It is important to note that two types of larger -volume medium-sized triode produced by Chinese mainland---211 and 845, are well concerned. The state-owned tube amplifier manufacturers early or late have promoted many types of fairsounding and cheap-pricing 211/845 tube amplifiers, which “the ratio of sound and price” was so high that made the overseas tubes were not able to hold. Nevertheless, the newly triode type appeared in the mainland recent two years has become more powerful, the grand appearance and high-qualified sound cheered every users. To match the king of tube, the domestic manufacturers have also promoted many overlord types successively with the high-degree and sound performances surpassed all tube manufacture throughout the history.
As to the huge-scale 212 tube amplifiers, its materials adopted the masterpiece of American Western Electric vacuum tubes golden period of 1930s, 212 was used in public broadcast system (including airplane, ships , stud-farms and ball parks) and worked as power output in the first place. Search for the history, Western Electric itself has had designed many types of fair-sounding and cheap-pricing tubes, but never has used 212 in the theater audio tube amplifiers, however, we audio enthusiasts all have known today that the great tubes which produced by Western Electric were so many that it couldn’t all be used in the theater audio system. In fact, since 1970s, antique music market has swept a wave of Western Electric. The self-decided fanciers who were fond of welded tubes have explored many little-known and the most outstanding amplifier tubes. And among these, the most powerful one was exactly 212 for its large volume which cannot be surpassed, rare amount and high-qualified technology that the ordinary self-decided fanciers cannot drive.
Just because these restrictions mentioned above, in the past ten years, only a few versatile Japan and Europe HIFI friendly-used 212s have ever produced tubes, and which began to break through two years ago, for our country’s vacuum tubes has already tried to produce 212.
As is known to all, the domestic HI-FI vacuum tubes has topped the world tube sales market recent years, domestic manufacturers have decades of experience on ensuring the sound quality and stability. However, when it comes to Reproducing Western Electric 212, they faced a harsh challenge, they found that the exquisite technology of Western Electric has not only broadened their horizons but also has improved the manufacturing skill themselves. In the process of producing 212, 《THE TUBE WORLD》, as a media promoter, more or less have involved in it. From my prospective, the scale and business means of several factories are different from each other, while they are the same in setting the goal of producing the most fair-sounding and stable 212. I should say, till today, among many domestic 212s that I have listened to, PSVANE is the only one that has the most beautiful appearance and its sound closer to the antique Western Electric. As the most successful domestic tubes in the market, we Reproducing Western Electric tubes have gained a lot of extraordinary achievements: PSVANE 300B and 274B using their real listening sound experience provided have gained a good reputation by so many audio fanciers so far. According to my observation, PSVANE has really done a good job in R&D of tubes. In addition to the great business tactics adopted by managers, the deep understanding of technology is also one of the important reasons to success. Take 212 as an example, besides the slight difference of tube structure appeared in different periods, the easiest distinguishable one is that the earlier adopted the pinnacle design of tube bodies( 212A- 212D) with the filament lights a little bit dark, while the later one the dome design of 212E with dazzling light. Some domestic tube factories have their own plan in choosing which one of Western Electric 212 to reproduce. While as for me, PSVANE Reproducing 212 with the adopted earlier pinnacle design is to my taste. As far as I have known, the difficulty is relatively high in manufacturing the pinnacled large-scale amplifier tubes. Western Electric 212 later one changed to adopt dome design, maybe this is a way to “ask for the easy and give up difficulty”, while the fact turned out that after I had several listening test of 212D(pinnacle design) and 212E(dome design), I was sure the 212D( pinnacle design) has a more charming voice. PSVANE 212 adopts pinnacle design, which both has asked the original taste in appearance, but also does good to sound performance.
This time I give a listening test to PSVANE WE212, which uses MELODY 212 Everest as the criterion (GRE PIN 212 has not delivered yet). Because 212 is high- voltage tube, the quality ought to be restricted strictly, or it would be easy to cause an accident. So when testing 212, the sound performance and stability are of same importance; In terms of sound performance, once PSVANE WE212 begins to play, it will make you cheer to speechless. With the fluent voice, rich emotion and grand breadth, this is the greatest one I have never listened to. WE212 (based on the measurement of MELODY’s bias meter) is a completely symmetric type that PSVANE manufacturer has sent to me, it put into practice in replaying the music, the accuracy of videotape and location that WE212 displayed is beyond imagination. The deep and wide sense of sound stage3CD also reaches to an inconceivable degree (I should agree that the antique tubes and items of Western Electric cannot give me such same HIFI feeling); In terms of stability, I have listened to PSVANE for two weeks, 7-8 hours per day, never found any mistakes. According to my test experience, the first week is very important in testing new tubes. During this period, the mistakes can be easily found if it has. If it has nothing wrong when you listen to 2 weeks successively, then the stability won’t be a problem. As the large-scale triode, the stability and reliability of PSVEANE WE212 is unquestionable.
The king of tube- 212, its ever-charming tone, emotion and grand momentum cannot be understood by users who did not hear by himself. There already have many types of great-performed 212 tubes inland currently to be offered to choose (GRE PIN, MELODY and so on), when they are played with PSVANE WE212, this can be the most beautiful sound that can be bought.