ARC Preamps: Factory or Other Tubes?

Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio is a good source for tubes. Some aren't any or much more than stock.

Bob Wood
http://www.GreatHomeTheater.com

http://www.tubeaudiostore.com/powertubes.html

http://www.upscaleaudio.com/

You might want to stop leaving your pre amp on for weeks at a time. That is fine for a SS unit but, tubes don't have the lifespan of SS circuits.

When I bought my first ARC preamp 13 years ago (the LS-1), I knew nothing about tubes. It's a hybrid linestage that uses one (1) 6DJ8/6922/7308 tube. (In fact, I still have it) My dealer helped me obtain two replacement tubes from ARC for $50 each. That's a lot of money back then. They were just plain low noise Sovtek 6922s. Yeah, after that, I decided not to get suckered again. I've since learned as much as I could about tubes and I've not paid that kind of price for any tube, including NOS Siemens CCa, Amperex 7308, Mullard 10M 6DJ8, since then.

There are lots of good tube dealers online. You can find some on the homepage of Audio Asylum listed as sponsors. If you are not into NOS tubes, you can find good quality, tested, matched, low noise current production tubes like Sovtek and Electro-Harmonics from these dealers for like $10-$20 a pop. But NOS tube is the way to go. You will never go back once you try them.

And there's a bonus with playing NOS tubes. You can always sell them for more than what you paid for. I think they are better investments than most of my stocks. Within the past 5 years, I think the prices of NOS tubes have at least doubled or tripled.

FrankC