New Valve Day - Linlai KT88 into Trace Elliot V-Type V4 MK2..

[VTypeV4]

 

The V4 had a little hiccup a few months back with a horrible cracking through the speakers, lightning inside one of the EHX KT88s and ultimately a fried fuse. The EHX are still currently untested but being safe rather than sorry, I replaced the fuse and installed some old SED 6550C that I'd acquired - these thankfully brought it back to life. They've been fine but I wanted something a bit newer and special for the big Trace so having done a bit of research, I came across these 'Linlai' branded '88s. Initially, I thought they were re-branded premium Shuguang but seemingly, I was wrong and it's a new factory set up by former emplyees of both Shuguang and Psvane specialising in big hifi tubes such as 845 and 811 plus smaller 6SN/L7 and ECC83/2/1 types.. 

 

 

With only about 45 mins on them so far, it's nowhere near enough time to evaluate them but initial impressions are very good. They look fantastic, biased up and remained stable after about 25 mins plus I noticed an exceptionally low noise floor - the V4 isn't noisy anyways but it was near silent with these.

 

 

We'll see how they go - I got the best part of ten years out of the EHX (and there's a chance they're still ok) which is longer than I've had out of any other set that have ever been in there. Whether these will match the Russian built valves is yet to be seen but having paid £150 including delivery, the V4 feels great and I'm a happy camper.. 🥰