ARC Select Worth Price?

I have no idea what an ARC select is (other than assuming it is targeted to that company in Minnesota that WZJ started) but my experience with the 6h30 in a Veloce line stage was that the new production tube could not reproduce the full harmonic envelope of the old DR Reflector. That's the shortcoming of that tube- I guess they were more readily available when Victor was ramping up BAT, but these days, they are tough to find, often counterfeited and my limited experience with the modern tube revealed a vast gulf in sound quality- from visceral to dead sounding.

I gather that ARC gear is not as sensitive to tube changes in the 6h30 as the unit I use. And maybe these select tubes are better than the run of the mill modern production. Only one way to know, I guess. I'm sure they'll be a hell of a lot easier to buy and cheaper than trying to find early Reflectors. Be interested in what you report. I don't usually buy tubes from Upscale though a few tubes in another vintage piece here came from him some years ago courtesy of the late Bill Thalmann. 

I’ve bought several sets of 6H30 from Upscale over the years. Both Sovtek and EH Gold labels (both good, extremely similar sound). Upscale’s "Platinum" grade has always been fantastic. Never had a bad one. Never tried Gold grade. I’ve tried both the ARC Select and Cryo premiums - couldn’t tell a difference with either of those. Tubes were going into ARC Ref 6 and Rogue Hera II preamps. And briefly, a Ref 3SE phono. The Ref 6 is very well engineered, and will not have any audible noise floor even on high efficiency speakers, given any decent set of tubes. The noise heard on Ref 3SE (with very low output cartidges, and volume up high) is from its JFET stage. The Rogue Hera II has an inherently high noise floor, but even here I didn’t notice any improvement from premium selectred tubes (I tried).

If a tube goes bad, of course it can go noisy. But for a good set of new tubes, I just go for Upscale Platinum grade all day.

Never tried the vaunted DR version. Hard to find, and expensive especially in these quantities!

I recently retubed my ARC Ref 6SE with my backup set and ordered a new backup set from Upscale. My preference is to order from ARC as they do a lot of testing. But I was trying to save a few dollars. I felt obligated to buy the ARC select from Upscale... assuming they were testing more like ARC would do. I asked if they were matched, the answer is yes. If you order more than one... I ordered seven, they are all matched if on the same order. I just sent a follow up message asking the differences between regular and ARC Select. 

Although I listen two to three hours a day... that still means it is years between retubing... so, hard to get much experience on different tubes.