ARC Select Worth Price?

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.