Just to be clear, a year or so ago I was recommending the original Psavane EL34PHs as being the best SQ of the new production tubes I had tried to date.
But I then reported the quality control issues, one of which included the oversize pins and fragile base which contributed to the plastic centre guiding pin being easy to break. The mark 2 Psavane appears to have addressed that particular issue (as well as looking very smart), but I have not tried them.
Since then I've found that the Mesa Boogie is one new production tube that has slightly better SQ than the original Psavane, and is much cheaper - see my league table in the BHSE thread.
I'd be interested to see how the updated Psavane shapes up, because if they have sorted the quality issues out, then it could well be the best new production el34 around, but I'm in no rush to try it myself.
The Mesa Boogie is one tube I found to be more dynamic than the original Psavane - to the point where some may find it overly forward and punchy, but I think the BHSE can take that in its stride. The other tube I found more dynamic than the original Psavane is the vintage Phillips metal base, although at an overall higher SQ level. That's not to say that other tubes can't be dynamic as well, just that these particular two struck me so at the time.
Based on the the measurement cards I've seen from Psavane (and Shuguang for that matter), I take their quad matching claims with a pinch of salt. Grant Fidelity claim better matching if you buy via them, but that is still all done at the Chinese factory, not directly by GF. You can lead a horse to water....
My second set of Psavane PHs were bought from GF and they failed in the same way as the non-GF set (search for it in the BHSE thread). Rachel's response to me was unhelpful (basically pay up for a replacement), but I didn't take her to task on it because at the time her husband was in a bad way with cancer. So I just cut my losses.
I'm not complaining (much), just pointing out how it is these days. Maybe it's got better, hopefully so as the stock of vintage tubes won't last forever.
