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What is the best place to buy tubes?

What is the best place to buy tubes? I've read several threads on Audiogon listing many tube stores, but where can you get quality? I bought tubes from Tube Depot (listed many times here) and paid extra for matching. Not only weren't they well matched but 1/3 of them were bad, so I suspect the tubes I received weren't actually tested. Then they sent replacements, but half of those tested bad. I bought matched sets from The Tube Store, but they were so poorly matched that the distortion was worse that the old tubes they replaced. I've bought from equipment manufacturers (CJ, ARC) and found they do good testing and matching, but their prices are very high. Is there any place to get tubes that are matched well and of good quality? Thanks.
holos
883dave
50 posts
 
I have purchased 5 tubes from Brendan at Tube World over the last several years, received what I bought and paid for. Good matched pairs (checked on my tube tester)and no microphonics (7308's, E188cc's and 5751's).
rlawry
414 posts
 
I have bought tubes from Kevin at Upscale Audio, Andy at Vintage Tube Services, Ken at Advantage Tube Services, and Brendan at Tube World with good results. Tube World is one of the higher-priced places, but he has an unmatched inventory, not to mention a huge treasure trove of information.
jtimothya
551 posts
 
One thing I will say for Tubeworld ... tube descriptions and sonic characterizations are absolutely spot on, in my experience. Prices may be a bit higher than some, but products are exactly as described - Brendan knows his tubes. He and Andy Bowman at VTS are two of the very best.
ckorody
640 posts
 
Brandon at TubeWorld is extremely knowledgeable and stands behind his product with a money back guarantee.

So does Brent Jesse at http://www.audiotubes.com/.

As does Dennis Boyle at Chimera Labs who does not have as wide a stock but can often hook you up with great tubes at lower prices. Great guy to deal with.
http://home.att.net/~chimeraone/tubesaleslist.html

With all three guys the knowledge and advice is top notch, product is great and packing and shipping are fast.
ghosthouse's avatar
ghosthouse
3,718 posts
 
Newbee -
Don't mean to beat up on the Tube Store if it's the manufacturer's quality issue. Also, just to be clear... the expected life/hrs they cited for the power tubes was well over 1000. When writing last night I couldn't remember the exact number so I just wrote >1000. It might have been in the range of 1200 or 1500 hrs. In any case, I expect they were being conservative though, as you can see, 2 JJ Tesla KT88s never made it nearly that far.

I did buy Ei Elite 12AX7s and NOS Mullard 12AT7s from them and those are still working just fine.

The Tube Store order fulfillment service has been great though I was not impressed with their matching service.

I didn't really appreciated that a tube failing suddenly could cause damage beyond a blown fuse. Thanks for the warning.
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