ARC Select Worth Price?

@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.