Best Tubes on Market today?

Hi

First with respect to buzzing, noise.... My ex wife used to use those plug in air fresheners.   It took me a while to trace, especially after swapping known good tubes and getting the same result.  It was a noise that mimicked a bad tube.   It was on an entirely different circuit, go figure.  

More recently, i had a buzzing in both speakers.  Low level, but irritating.  Turned out to be my Powerline 2000 ethernet over AC adapter I use for my Vault and BluRay...   I switched to a Linksys AC1200 Max wireless bridge.  Amazingly solved all noise issues.  What was strange is my preamp had the buzz in all inputs,  once I removed the ethernet cable, dead silence.

I am using JJ tubes in my Quicksilver Mid Monos and my c-j Classic 2SE and they sound great. I have used Gold Lion and they were great too but the JJ's tone in my system is superb... so good I'm afraid to touch it.

One thing I can say about the Gold Lion is that they are extremely rugged.  Their 6922 is the only tube I've used in that c-j that lasted more than a year before going noisey.  They sound great too.  I've used their 12ax7 and same thing, great tube , long lasting.

I am at the low end of sophistication in this, but my tube needs are limited.  Does anyone have recommendations for the two tubes that go into the PS Audio BHK Pre-Amp and BHK 300 Watt Monoblocks?

Good: Gold Lion
Great: Sofia Electric

"When you cook you have to marry different tastes and when you find the right associations, it puts a smile on your face." 

 EXACTLY!

Call Andy at Vintage Tube Services.
Tell him the tonal characteristics you are looking for.
He is the best.

Here is a link to the site

http://vintagetubeservices.com/

For balanced 12AU7 you forget CiFTE WAH and military RT WA. Also great tubes are unobtainium Valvo (made in Hamburg) K62. 
Don’t forget the  E186cc.
All are great tubes by themselves but can interfere and interact more or less happily with the other tubes around.
I played a few years with all that and conclude the partnership is as important for a final sound you seek after than the added sq of the tubes themselves.
All Telef or all « Mullards » or British styled tubes is not always the best choice (for my taste and in my system). 
When you cook you have to marry different tastes and when you find the right associations  it puts a smile on your face.

hi
i would solve the noise issues by a tech and than replace both 12au7 at least. china is the worst source for any audio gear ide wait till i can afford it and go only with nos nib guaranteed (the older the better). i have experience with a few great nos 12au7 tubes these are my favourites :
1.mullard 10m goldpin 12au7 :the end of tube rolling,the cleanest tube with the widest stage and frequency extension the best audiophile grade preamp tube ever made in england has a fresh hint of brightness  .think if telefunkens had a soul...(if you even consider teles try amperex or simens they are sweeter sounding less dry and sound less german....)
2.mullard 12au7/12au7a 1958-1975 great low mid slightly recessed highs very smooth and weighty ,healthy gain.
3.brimar warm but not smooth less bass more upper mid lots of vintage british personality ,i prefer military/industrial (12au7a /cv 4003)versions since they have a lower noise floor (it's a very gainy tube)
4.ge jan military versions:well balanced sweet and crispy highs very low noise floor great clarity and definition,tames angry amps(too gainy or too sharp) .great tube and not so pricey .
5.rca 12au7a also a great tube more gain and upper midrange as opposed to the more transparent clean and hollow ge. 

ei001h- Far as, "best tubes on market"; the best are all NOS, from reputable dealers(as mentioned above). Since you asked about, "best’ for you; that depends on your taste in reproduction. It’s been my experience, that many like a warm, sweet, what some call, "tubey" sound. If that appeals to you, stick with British(ie: Mullard or Brimar) If a cleaner, more detailed presentation attracts you; go with German tubes(ie:Teles or Siemens). Somewhere in the middle, are Amperex/Bugle Boy, Pope and Phillips(Holland). NOS American tubes can go either way. The previous comments are focused on nine-pin Miniatures. I’ll include a list/comparison survey, which deals with the 6SN7 family. I’ve found the first author’s comments/impressions quite accurate (all my personal favorites are bottom-gettered) . With the prices that NOS output tubes are now commanding; current production is very attractive. No experience here, regarding SET output valves. http://www.dehavillandhifi.com/6sn7_vt.htm and: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the-reference-6sn7-thread.117677/

  I retubed my C2300 and MR-71 with NOS Telefunkun tubes. All tubes preceded 1970. I even bought one made in November, 1954. All NOS tubes made a great, audible difference in my system. And also quite a hole in my pocketbook!

" I've been running 845 amps in my system for nearly 20 years, some noise is inherent to these amps "
I have a Line Magnetic 518iA 845 tube integrated, it makes zero noise

If I was trying to solve a noise problem in my amp that I thought was coming from the tubes, I would not think for a minute that I should run out and spend hundreds/thousands of dollars on vintage tubes to solve the problem. I would first want to swap the tubes with another set of known "good" tubes just to see if that altered the problem in some way.

There is no reason not to buy a new set of tubes at reasonable prices to test this hypothesis. Upscale Audio and a number of other established sellers have plenty of quality tubes that will sound excellent and allow you to diagnose this issue without spending excessive amounts of money on a guess.
And I totally agree with all the posts that warn of buying tubes on ebay. That is nothing short of Russian roulette. That is NOT the place to go to solve this problem.

ei001h
I also recommend Andy from vintage tube Services Inc.. I've been buying from him for years never had a problem with tubes.
As someone else suggested I would get rid of the noise in the amplifier before changing tubes.
I only have experience with Siemens 12Au7s bought from upscale audio. I use them in my phono preamplifier and also in my Zesto bia120 amplifier.  They are similar sounding to Telefunkens. They tend to give you more detail than other tubes in the same class.  


 

Here is a selection of tubes from upscale audio:
ECC82 or 12AU7. Are those identical tubes with different names?
Which would be best in your opinion based on experience? 

MULLARD NEW PRODUCTION 12AU7 / ECC82

TUNGSRAM ECC82 / 12AU7

TUNG-SOL 12AU7W / 6189

RCA CLEARTOP 12AU7

GOLD LION ECC82 / B749 / 12AU7

RADIOTECHNIQUE 12AU7

CIFTE 12AU7

BRIMAR CV4003 / 12AU7

Price makes no difference for me here. Anyone with experience on the above ? The original tube in my amp are Tungsram ECC82

I've been running 845 amps in my system for nearly 20 years, some noise is inherent to these amps. Relatively high powered SET amp with high efficiency speakers creates perfect environment for creating noise.

One effective way to decrease noise is to use less efficient speakers, my highly modified Merlin VSM are far less noisy than my highly modified Klipschorns.

There is nothing wrong with your amp. As for tubes,in your price range get the Psvane WE Replica, great tube. At a lower price the Psvane TII is very nice. NOS tubes are way above your price range. Shuguangs are decent for the price. I would stay away from Fullmusic, nice sound, not good reliability, Psvanes have nice sound quality and are reliable. My next upgrade tube will likely be Psvane Acme 845.

It is also possible dirty AC could be impacting your system. Power conditioners will be effective here, however, they will likely negatively affect transients with any 845 amp. I've tried many power conditioners over the years, all negatively impacted transients until I tried Furutech. Flex-50 NCF inline filter. This has greatly diminshed hum and maintained transient impact, great filter in my setup.

You didnt go wrong with thomas mayer’s, they are really magnificent products!!! 

+1 for both Andy and Brent J. For the price of some tubes, it’s important to know the NOS tube you get is the tube you want and ordered. I found that the tubes make a huge difference in SQ, particularly in phono stages. For my ears, and the lowest noise I run Amperex & Telefunken NOS. 

I know now nothing about 845s. 

The new PSvane & gold lions 12AX7s have an edge that I don’t prefer. But that’s the fun of rolling tubes. Brent J has me on hold for a pair of Tung Sol 6SN7 for my amp. I always look for military or medical grade “low noise” tubes. 

On the humming noise topic, I had a “motor-boating” sound only coming thru my phono section. After LOTS of trial and error, I isolated it to RFI coming from my google mesh WAP. It was getting picked up somewhere in my TT, cartridge or cables. When I moved the WAP across the room and onto the floor, it has essentially disappeared. So don’t overlook that a possibility. Good luck!

I have no clue if this might be your issue or not, but I found that I was getting hum in my headphone system that was being caused by the outlet itself, switched it out to an industrial grade one and the problem ceased. YMMV

IMO,I don't believe that you can do better than Vintage Tube Services. Andy is great to work with.He also has "Andy's picks" which are thoroughly inspected used tubes .I have never had a bad tube,new or used from him.

Best 845 tube I have tried is made by Elrog (German). I use them as power tubes in my Cayin CS-845A integrated amp. The 845 tube was designed by RCA (1939)

My suggestion to you is DO NOT buy any new tubes till you get the buzzing issue resolved. If you cannot get the buzzing issue resolved, as previously suggested, purchase a new amp.( life is to short to listen to a buzzing system) When you get to the point that you are ready to purchase new tubes DO NOT buy them from outlets like ebay or amazon, those sellers are far from professional tube dealers. A professional tube dealer will perform several different tests and use different pieces of test equipment for those tests before their tubes are determined to be good enough for sale. There is a lot of dishonesty in the tube business, many of our customers paid high prices for what were supposed to be NOS (NEW old stock) tubes but after the tubes were tested by a professional the tubes were determined to be USO (USED old stock) or even worse JOS (JUNK old stock) Most non professionals only run one test on there tube tester and that only determiners whether the tube is good or bad and what percentage of life is left in the tube. All NOS tubes should test at 100% and nothing else or it is used. If you are a critical listener and have a very reveling system, even with tubes that test 100%, only a certain percentage of those tubes test good enough for preamps and even a smaller percentage for phono preamps. Another trick we have seen, that tube buyers must be aware of is this, sellers are buying cheap tubes and using steel wool to remove the name off of the tube and then painting a different name (one that is much more expensive) on the tube and of course that tube tests out at 100% so it is sold as NOS. Most of the time if you put these tubes in the freezer over night you will be able to see parts of the printing that was removed. Buy from a reputable tube dealer and avoid all these problems and more.

Andy's Vintage Tubes is very good. I also had a good experience with Vacuum Tubes Inc.. After purchasing NOS tubes from a few places and some of the tubes went bad quickly, I bought a set of RCA12au7 Clear Top from Vacuum Tubes Inc.. They were cheaper than anywhere else, and are still working perfectly after a few months.

I replaced a pair of Gold Lion kt77’s with Wathen Cryotone kt77’s and was impressed enough to keep them in. Very dynamic and sweet sounding to my ears. 
https://www.wathenspeakers.com/index.html

+1 on Andy's Vintage Tubes.  He is the best I've ever worked with.

Hi.

I had a similar problem. Humming transformer, noise from the channels. Replaced the big electrolytic caps and most of the noise went away. Then swapped out all the caps in the amp and it is close to black. Suspect I would need an AC conditioner to get rid of the rest. Amp is 25 years or so years old. Age takes its toll on caps. Not sure how old your amp is, but might be worth pulling the power caps out an measure them. Just a thought.

P

I am using 8 Shuguang Black Treasures CZ 181z instead of 6SN7’s - They are amazing tube
Purchased from Salience HI FI 
they are on Amazon.
They respond to all emails promptly.
30 Day gauranteez

DC offset most certainly can and does exist on AC lines.  And it can definitely cause or exacerbate mechanical transformer hum/buzz on both tube and SS amps.  I have personally witnessed even an inexpensive Emotiva CMX-2 reduce mechanical hum/buzz.  I have also observed DC offset effects reduced using an Isotek EVO3 Synchro Uni.


Also, while I suspect it's really rare for tubes to buzz it has happened to me once.  On a Cary SLI-80 the rectifier tubes were buzzing and it was 100% fixed by replacing those rectifier tubes.  I've never witnessed any other tubes buzz.  Most tube noise sounds like tuning in a staticky AM radio station.

Call Brent at Brent Jesse recording  you can get extended warranty, trial good at voicing tubes .

Which PSvane in particular ? There is quite a few out there. 

For your budget, PSVane is going to be the best.  Sophia’s (TJ fullmusic) and KRs are both significantly more than what you are planning to spend.  Additionally, KRs don’t work in every amp.

PSVane’s premium tubes only can be purchased from them.  Go their website.  They do not have an OEM program and they charge $25 shipping.  

Also, if you do decide to stay at a lower level, the Shuguang 845Bs sound better than the 845Cs in my opinion.  

Good luck

Every tube I've used from Tung Sol has been fine to very good...Gold Lion KT88s, KT120s, 150s, 6550s...GL KT77s are amazingly good (JJ KT77s just didn't sound right in my power amp) but bettered, in my amp anyway, by the relatively recent Tung Sol 7581A...to think these tubes are inferior to some vintage and pricier exotica is ridiculous as they've all earned their place among consumers and manufacturers. That said, I've recently bought various 6SN7GTBs (my current preamp and power amp both use these) and found that I prefer NOS GEs over new version Tung Sols or NOS Sylvanias...all of these are relatively inexpensive.

In my cheap Chinese amp, I'm using Shuguang Pvsane 845 tubes. My amp is quiet and sounds very good, despite its poor provenance.

 regards,
Dan

Test pilot, Metal plate glows bright red 

get the black carbon Shuguangs, recently released.

Sophia Electric blue.

I have a cheaper 845 amp that came with stock Chinese tubes from the early 2000s.  I wasn't impressed with the sound so I bought Psvanes.  I don't know yet if it will make a difference.  My options were very limited I wasn't going to spend thousands of dollars on vintage Western tubes.  I'll let you know if the new tubes make a difference.  I would have bought Russian Gold Lions if they were available.  I've enjoyed their small signal and power tubes (KT-77s and KT-88s).Vintage tubes had conferred an advantage in sound quality a nd I bought many of them.  I have a fairly large collection (In my own estimation)  I have been testing them recently and found many with marginal emissions or other more serious problems like shorts etc.  The open market for vintage tubes was a crap shoot.  Now I only buy from respected dealers who thoroughly test their tubes.  I don't sell as a rule but if I  would be open and tell the buyer as much as I know.

You cannot go wrong with NOS Sylvania, RCA, Mullard, Tung Sol. Spend as much as you can.

Careful, the Shuguang 845C tubes are a low dissipation tube (70W) and are not a direct drop in replacement 845 for some amps.  Do the metal plate glow red when powered? 

Recommend Brent Jessee for vintage tubes http://www.audiotubes.com/
Aside from Sylvania 6SN7s, I have found the Sophia Electric 6SN7s to be very nice sounding and reliable.

NOS tubes buy from Andy

http://vintagetubeservices.com

the Shuguang WE 6SN7 Plus tubes I've been using are very good, although I can not comment on longevity, just performance.

RAM Labs  http://www.tubeaudiostore.com/index.html

All the vintage 845 tubes I have seen are quite expensive but there are a lot of reasonably priced nos 6sn7 tubes available. The Tube Depot currently has 845 RCA tubes for sale for $1,995 each if you are interested.I  have had good luck and sound from the mid priced Shuguang 845 tubes in my Cary 211 AE amps.

Some tube testers will only give a "good" reading - not a numerical value. This usually means at least 50% cathode emissions. Meaning that tube life is at least half of new. Such tubes can be considered quite usable and capable of long service! 

You pay your money and you take your chances! I have bought many vintage tubes from different EBay sellers successfuliy. Look for sellers that offer tubes that are tested for shorts, leakage and cathode emissions (important!). This last measurement will give a good idea of a tube's potential life - 100% and down!

Is there a reliable source for vintage tubes? 

Vintage RCA 845's and GE/Sylvania 6SN7's are an easy recommendation. Used ones that still test good for emissions are certainly acceptable!

Buy and use only vintage tubes! Avoid tubes from China and Russia! Sure, they are a lot cheaper but quality and longevity are inferior to Western tubes made in the 60's and earlier! 

@millercarbon: DC offset only applies to transistor amps. It is measured in millivolts. Tube amps do not have DC offset. Output transformers do not pass DC voltage. Regarding AC power lines, I doubt they have any DC voltage on them!

DC offset? How do I test for it? I get the transformer buzz even when everything is disconnected. Not sure what you mean, please elaborate. 

Better amp than Mastersound ? I was under the impression mastersound is one of the more high end amps out there. It's counterpart PF100 is $50,000 and a slightly larger Evo 845 is 18k. 

I switched pre tubes around from left to right and the louder noise also moved to the other channel. So I assume it's pre tube. How do I get rid of ground loop? 

Also, my questions remains, what are the best 845 tubes right now?