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Upscale audio advice

I have been looking to change the tubes on my BAT VK-30 from the Russian made 6922/6h23 which work fine but am looking into upgrading them. I looked at the Upscale selection and a few options initially caught my eye. These are as follows:
1)Amperex 7308 vintage gold pin
2)Amperex 6DJ8/ECC88 Bugle Boy
3)Ediswan CV2492/6922
4)Mullard 2493/6922 & Mullard E188CC/7308

All of which, if I choose their Platinum grade, range from $70 to $110.00 each which seemed pretty reasonable to me. The problem is, their sales guys tells me that none of these are suitable for my Pre-amp. He goes on to tell me that the only units that will work are the very same 6H23's that I already have. Is this sound advice from them given the fact that I would like to spend some decent coin to upgrade or do they not wish to deal with me? I have seen in other forums that they tend to want to sell to customers who have purchased equipment from them. Is this true? I do want to change my tubes given the fact that they are about 5 yrs old and definately are due for a change. I find it hard to believe that the only option they have that will work with my VK-30 would be these cheaper $35.00 per tube units. Any further comments anybody may want to add to this or advice you may have for me?
vinylmad814
vinylmad814 OP
59 posts
 
I did contact Victor and he said contact Kevin @Upscale lol

Victor was not sure as to what tubes to recommend which somewhat surprised me given he is MR BAT. He states he is no expert on the the variety of tubes that are out there unfortunately.
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
6,996 posts
 
Well with a reply from BAT like that, now I understand why you`re quizzing the panel. Good luck.
Regards,
djohnson54
372 posts
 
Well, I re-tubed my VK-3i with tubes from Upscale just a few months ago. I called, left a message for Kevin and he called me back. I had an idea what I wanted and we discussed the merits of various tubes. He then put me on hold to go and check his notes about another customer who he seemed to recall had problems with a particular tube in my preamp. In short, I seem to get great service from Kevin but maybe you spoke with someone else. Mofi may be right in that whoever you talked to thought you had the SE version. There are other good tube sellers out there too but Kevin is definitely a good one as well. BTW, I didn't buy the BAT from him - this is my second set of tubes from Upscale and he never asked where I bought the preamp.
bizango1
276 posts
 
This certainly sounds like confusion over SE version vs. non SE. One of the things I like about my VK300xSE is that I like the sound of the tubes but I don't have to fret over which ones to run because there aren't a lot of options. I doubt that Kevin is coppin' an attitude to alienate BAT owners who will buy tubes just because he's not carrying BAT components anymore.
rrog
1,958 posts
 
You talked to the experts and you didn't get the answer you wanted, so you came here? Now that's funny! Do you really believe the higher priced tubes are better? They cost more because there isn't as many.
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