Good idea to swap McIntosh amp stock tubes?

I think one of the most frustrating things about this situation is that McIntosh installs tubes that are questionable as to how good they are.  I believe the consensus is they are not as good as they probably should be. They put their fancy logo on each of the tubes and somehow that’s supposed to make them perform better.

Does anyone believe the tubes used by McIntosh are good? And then they have a problem if we try to change the tubes because they have designed their amplifiers based upon tubes that may not be as good as they should be so they advise against changing out these tubes.

If they’re JJ-sourced, then they are not good. JJs go right in the trash. Chinese tubes can be extremely bad or very good (and everywhere in between), depending on source & screening. Russian tubes are generally good to very good.

When you have very selective large tube suppliers / buyers like Upscale Audio and VAC - who completely avoid JJ tubes - that says a lot. The only reason many use JJs is price and availability.

And there are definite reasons why a brand would want to discourage tube rolling "experiments". 

I have used the stock McIntosh tubes in my C2500 preamp since I bought it in 2017.  I only changed the MM phono tubes to Gold Lion tubes because I once heard static.  You have plenty of options for tubes with your amps. The McIntosh branded tubes (JJ) are good enough for people who don’t visit here.  For people like us, we always want better.  I have never had a McIntosh branded tubes fail and the stock tubes are not crappy tubes.  It sounds to me like one of your amps has a problem if one of the tube LED’s intermittently keeps lighting up.  Did you buy new or used?  Do you really think McIntosh uses questionable tubes with all the tube equipment they produce?

@wbs 

The legendary MC2000, what a great tube amp !  I have always drooled over that amp...  It must sound fantastic !  Congrats !   

Regarding tube wear on my two MC275s in monoblock mode,  I had a full set of Genelex Gold Lion Reissues in them for 13 years.  I tested the tubes, and the 12AT7s (which manage the KT88s) were on the low end of the tester, but, the KT88s still tested practically NOS.  The 12AX7 tests were more inconclusive because I had been rolling them with vintage 12AX7s, but, they did not test NOS, and my impression was that they wore faster than the KT88s.  As you know it is harder to get accurate tests on power tubes vs preamp tubes because they may behave differently under load, so, the power tubes may have been more worn than the tester showed.  My tests were all on a Hickok 539C tester.    In the end, after 13 years, I decided to change all of them anyway, so, I have lots of spares now. 

Note:  I did look up the plate voltages, and your MC2000 is set at 500V DC, while my two MC275 V are set at 450V DC.  With Reissue power tubes, which may not be as robust as vintage power tubes, this may wear the KT88 power tubes faster ?  not sure. 

@emergingsoul 

”Is anyone experiencing very sensitive red lighting when it comes to McIntosh amplifiers? I’ve experienced red light blinking and constant red light conditions and both times I replaced all the small tubes and this solved the problem”

I have on occasion and it was mostly due to bad tubes or tubes getting close to going bad. I have a tube tester and used them to test the power tubes on the McIntosh MC2310 that was red lighting. I found a few power tubes that were below the optimum power range for the KT88 tubes. I tested all of the power tubes first, all 8, and when I isolated the two power tubes with weak power levels, I replaced them with two brands new ones and voila, all was right in the world again. I decided to test the other 8 power tubes in the left MC2301 to see if I was facing a lower power level or other problem with the power tubes. All tested within spec so all good there. The protection circuit in the McIntosh amps are life savers to some extent. I am glad they are integrated into the amplifier system. 

@audioquest4life 

Are older tubes like NOS unpredictable and worth pursuing to replace the mcintosh stock tubes?  Or would more modern tubes be better due to less voltage variations that could trigger red light problems on a MacIntosh amplifier?

You are lucky to be savvy with tube testing whereas my experience has been to replace all the small tubes because it’s difficult to know which one is the problem and I don’t want to start testing them individually using the amplifier because every time you trigger a red light problem it may be negatively impacting the underlying circuit board. Maybe I should start to explore tube testing and be curious to know what device you use.

What small tubes do you like on your 2301?