Tube vendor recommendations?

@grey9hound +2  - Kevin is not a nice guy to deal with.  I use Christian Whitmore "Bowie" of Pro Audio Tubes. Nice guy - very knowledgeable.  Email him at proaudiotubes@aol.com.

Tube Audio Store (RAM tubes) and Brent Jessee.  Not a fan of Upscale Audio for reasons previously mentioned.  Vintage Tube Services has excellent quality tubes, but you must be willing to wait several weeks to get your tubes.

I've used Upscale Audio over the years with no problems.  I generally order tubes via the UA website, so I do not have to deal with humans very often.  No comments about Kevin.  I haven't dealt with him very often over the years.

That said, my tube requirements are pretty plain vanilla.  6h30s for driver and audio tubes; 6550 WEs or Tung Sol 6550s for the power supply.  It get's a little funky when I bought some KT 150s.  The tubes did not bias match as close as ARC sourced tubes.

Has anyone bought KT 150s for an ARC amp from another vender that were pretty closely matched re bias?  My recollection is that ARC sourced matched pairs of KT 150s were within a few mV of the 65mV target spec.  

BIF

 

Another vote for Jim McShane. Great person, very knowledgeable and has always given helpful advice, even to the point of tracking down the technical specs for my amp to make sure the bias point was appropriate.

Andy of Vintage Tube Services