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.

@mulveling @ghdprentice Thank you! Exactly what I wanted to know before proceeding. I listen about 12-16 hours/day when not traveling, although only 2-3 of those hours are "serious" listening. The remainder is radio, sometimes analog and sometimes streaming. 

@whart I am too late to the DR Reflector party, but thanks for sharing the history.

I had 2 iffy Sovtek 6550s in my ARC power amp. I replaced them with what I thought were well priced NOS Sovtek 6550 from Upscale. 

Now I am not an absolute expert on Sovtek tubes and their iterations throughout the eras but I do recognize obvious differences. In my case the Sovteks may or may not have been NOS but they certainly were NOT Soviet era tubes as my originals were. The newer tubes were noticeably lighter, thinner materials and apparently different metals at the base. 

I learned another lesson- relace ALL the tubes not just the weak ones. 

And another lesson: ARC matched tubes are in all respects superior to any I have encountered in the aftermarket. My matched set woke up my amp in a delightful way. More volume was the first surprise-- then the depth and detail presented in my favorite test music. It was a real joy to rediscover my music and my faithful old friend and room heater from ARC.

My local dealer let me have the ARC matched set at his cost. (He recently sold me some Maggie 3.7x so I had some good will leverage) 

My final conclusion: I got what I paid for- plus paid a stupid tax not going top shelf first. 

@hickamore you should watch Michael Fremer’s The Absolute Sound tour of ARC on YouTube. They do a lot of testing and burn-in of their selected tubes for ARC gear. Most look like new production EH brands, e.g., Tung Sol 6550s, etc.  ARC has built their own testing and burn-in jigs.  I suspect they’re voiced well for ARC gear.  I’ve always had good luck/good sound from EH Gold Lion power tubes. 

Upscale audio burns tubes in for 72 hrs then matches them.

AR needs tightly matched output tubes to perform at best.

Upscale would be fine

I have a AR 610T amp

AR factory wants 12K for a tube set. 48 tubes

Upscale sounds like a safe bet for my immediate needs. Thanks to all for the detail and reassurance.

I did get a response from Upscale. He said to buy ARC select only if you have Audio Research Equipment and that these tubes are selected to pass higher standards so to hold up better in ARC equipment. To that effect. 

I did get a response from Upscale. He said to buy ARC select only if you have Audio Research Equipment and that these tubes are selected to pass higher standards so to hold up better in ARC equipment. To that effect. 

I wonder what ARC would say about the guys dropping 6N6 tubes in place of 6N30 (6H30) for Reference series preamps, to get a different sound :o 

I’ve also heard of folks rolling in different types than 6550 for the regulator tubes. I’ve heard EH KT90 is actually the best, but you have to run lid-off due to its height. I’ve personally used Gold Lion KT88 (Russian) and it worked great. 

AR factory wants 12K for a tube set. 48 tubes

Yikes! $250 per Russian tube. That’s a nice racket. Frankly, traditional tube circuits tend to be very forgiving, and I have to question the engineering that makes a requirement of extremely stringent tube matching. Also, it sort of blows my mind that Upscale's most premium tube option is relatively the "budget" choice.

I am not a tube roller in general, at least not for Audio Research equipment. I know Audio Research has put tremendous design effort into achieving the exact sound you get with the stock tubes and changing tubes changes the sound. I bought Audio Research for the exact sound I get.

 For more generic sounding equipment or less expensive I would consider tube rolling. And have in my PrimaLuna for example and my Woo Head amps. 

Having said all of that. One of my audiogon friends tried and liked a NOS General Electric 6550... which goes in the power supply circuit on the ARC Ref preamp, phono stages and DAC. So, just for fun I tried one. There was not a huge difference... but it was just a tad warmer more tubey. Not a lot... subtle. So I kept it and put one in my DAC. But as I said, not a huge change. If I had really trebly / hot speakers it would probably make a bigger difference. 

Upscale website gives this further detail:

We deal with some fairly picky customers that want to make sure that their expensive ARC preamps, phono stages, and amps are as close to perfection as possible. For that customer we have 6H30’s in a grade called “ARC Select”.

This grade has four distinguishing characteristics:

1. The transconductance measurements will be as high as possible, resulting in a tube with the longest life.
2. Internal balance between the two triodes of the tube will be as tight as possible, within 10% (triode balance on a 6H30 can easily vary by 50%)
3. The microphony will be the absolute lowest possible, tested in a moving coil phonostage test circuit with 60dB of gain.
4. The noise will be the absolute lowest possible while being pushed in the same moving coil phonostage test circuit.
   
    

My prototype K&K Audio phono pre and Line Stage use a total of six 6H30s. These tubes are configured as diff. pairs with current source tails and CT transformer loads. Since the Lundahl LL1689 transformers will tolerate only a small amount of DC current the 6N30 tubes need to be matched for plate current at the OP. None of the tube dealers will do this and unfortunately my friend Kevin Carter of K&K has passed away. So I bought four ARC select tubes from Upscale and three of them met my specs. So I ordered twelve more with the same yield. As a result I have twelve tubes I can use and four that need a new home.