ARC Ref 3: Tung-Sol 6550 in power supply?

Great advice Guido. Given your deep knowledge of music and all the famous musicians that you know, your ability to pick chips must be peerless. Thanks for taking time out of you busy schedule of listening to live music to address my concerns.

Dave

Able to contribute to the discussion around the subject. I retubed my Ref. 3. It is now about 10 hrs...Not enough but some conclusion can be shared already. I probably already mentioned to the readers that my tubes had 2800 hrs of use and I did not have any feeling that it was time to change. But following the thread I decided to do it anyway and try the Tung Sol as rectifier. I can now be sure that the ARC sounded still exactely like new. Changing all 6H30 tubes infact did not change much the sound excepted for the initial time needed to run-in them. So I guess the signal tubes can easily be used up to the 4000 hrs mentioned by Audio Research and probably exceed this limit. The other thing I can say is that the 6550 type contributes a lot to the sound characteristics. Much more than I expected. The Tung Sol makes the REf 3 more similar to the Ref 2. More on the warm side. I tend to agree with Guido. I prefer the more open and lifelike sound with the original 6550C. The sound was more aggressive and sometimes more tiring. With the Tungsol is more (I would say much more) Tube sounding. I sense the tungsol makes the internal voltage lower. I do not have the schematics to measure this, but i say that because the display looks less bright. This would explain partially what I'm hearing,...More relaxed sound, but with bass that is not tight as before and treble less defined...As if the bias of the tubes was changed. Again 10 hrs is not enough. I will come back when the tubes will reach the 100 hrs. For now I would recomend to use the original 6550C.

Marco_esposito - what TungSol 6550 tube did you try ?

NOS Black Plate/Gray Plate from the 50s-60s or the new production TungSol "reissue" ?

I'm asking this question since those are two very different tubes.

Thanks Marco.

My bet is that even at 100 hours or more you will still prefer the original 6550C.

I spoke to the people at ARC severalweeks ago about retubing having read the comments that this should be done sooner rather than later and the person with whom I talked said there is absolutely noreason to retube before 4000-5000 hours. I also asked about tube rolling. he suggested that this is OK but that in their opinion the very best 6550 tube is already being used.
I have been in that camp throughout this entire thread as has Guido.

Not that I would disagree with you Oneobgyn, as I haven't experimented with my Ref 3 tubes either, and according to this thread I don't intend to. However, out of curiousity, whilst speaking with the ARC folks, did they happen to mention that the best power cord was also being used? Because I might have some disagreement there....

Cheers,
John