Which tubes to buy

you can research reliability, customer service, but you need to actually hear them in your equipment/system to know.

you can buy both brands from ali-express, just leave them in/on for 60 hrs (no signal needed) to burn them in: listen, keep one, both, return one or both

KT150 ali-express

tubedepot has a 20% restocking fee, tubestore does not mention that, but ... I bought from brent jesse, he let me return, no charge, I just paid the shipping difference, and I got a refund, the ones I liked cost less.

Greetings , I have Rogue gear but here’s my experience over the last 2 weeks. I sent a pair of M-180’s back to Rogue for a repair and upgrade to the “ Dark “ level. The fee for this was $2495 and comes with new signal tubes ( 3 per amp ).  They no longer provide NOS signal tubes due to availability, quality and price. Instead they use higher quality new production tubes. When I enquired about Tung Sol KT-120’s which were their standard, they switched to Psvane KT-88’s. They STRONGLY suggested that I avoid current production Russian power tubes including the 120’s and GL KT 88’s. They said if I could source older sets I’d be ok. They said they were close to 50% failure rate on the current ones. So Rogue is shipping with Psvane KT 88’s. They charge $500 for an octet. Considering my amps have all new parts I said to ship back with the Psvanes. They said they like them as much as Gold Lions and they’ve had good reliability. The only Psvanes I’ve used before were the T Series Mark II from Grant Fidelity. They are coated glass and a gold base, built like a tank. I’ll be up and running in about 2 weeks with the Psvanes and I’ll see what happens. At least I’ll have a base set of tubes for the amps. As soon as the amps are broken in I’ll roll NOS Telefunken signal tubes and look for some KT 120’s. I’ll probably bite the bullet and overpay at Upscale, but I’ll feel safe. A few years back I had a brand new GL KT-77 fail in another amp and damage the amp. I also asked about KT 150’s and was told that I’m my amps I would not gain anymore power due to limited plate voltage. Good luck and I hope my ramble helps. Regards, Mike B. 

To @motorheadflash, I agree, best to stick with the same and what your amps were designed and voiced with originally.  Best to source from a dealer who truly batch matches the tubes as AR did for your amps new.  

While I use close-matched sets of TungSol KT150 / KT120s in my own amps -and-use PSVANE tubes in my preamps and input tubes for my amplifiers, quality has been better the past two years. We'll see how it goes for the PSVANE KT150s, and time will tell, watching forums and feedback.  I'm evaluating some other PSVANE replacements now that do seem better than my prior pairs from 2-3 years ago fwiw. 

@motorheadflash  I think you are making the right decision.  Why have the doubt that tat your tubes are sub-optimal when you are using one of the word's best amps?

I took mulveling's advice and called Audio Research. They said they use the Tung-Sol tubes in all their power amps including the KT-170 in their new Ref. 330 mono's. They think they sound better and are definitely more reliable.                       I love the way the amp sounds I think I will stay with the ARC tubes for now.

The Tung Sol KT120s have a good reputation.

I have an ARC Reference 160s as well. My preference is to get the tubes from Audio Research... because they extensively test them and I want to support this great company. I have a spare quad of power tubes I bought from Upscale just in case I needed for testing. In general, I don’t tube roll with Audio Research equipment as they were carefully voiced. That said, a friend of mine tried a GE NOS 6550 in his ARC Ref preamp an liked it... so I ordered one just for fun.

ARC sez you can use KT120, KT88, and 6550's. They just don't necessarily indorse them. Sounds like they voiced the amp for the KT150's.

I remember that many years ago, Psvane tried to make a KT120 and they were notoriously unreliable. Maybe they’re better now, but there’s no way I’d trust a new KT150 from them until it’s had a lengthy, good track record under its belt.

You could ask ARC their thoughts on this tube, but my guess is they won’t be too keen on that. Upscale doesn’t sell JJ or Psvane tubes for a reason.

I've never used Psvane tubes, but they are getting mixed reviews about quality. Best do some research on this issue as well as whether or not (good or not) they are suitable for you ARC amp. I'm not familiar with your amp but ARC tends to drive their amps tubes hard which would stress 'weak' tubes and cause amp failures. I use Tung sol tubes in other amps (not ARC however) and have never had a premature failure. FWIW