ARC Select Worth Price?

@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.

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

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.