Best kt88 for VAC Avatar Super

I am a long-time VAC Avatar Super owner and have tried quite a few brands of output tubes and have found that the absolute best are definitely the Genelex Gold Lions, they do everything right from top to bottom. They are just awesome. Also a very good performer was the Ruby KT88 which I tried on the advice of a local tech. Next would be shuguang and then EH (great detail, limited bottom end).

The VAC tubes I have bought are very expensive and I don't see that you are getting anything better than you can get for less $$ from known and trusted tube vendors. Remember, Kevin values his time highly and you will see that in his pricing (can't fault him for that).

Maineiac
Have you tried Svetlana winged c?

VACMAN, I don't believe I have tried the Svetlana winged C.

Maineiac,

After reading your enthusiastic post, I ordered a matched quad of Gold Lions from Tube Depot (on sale for $109 for a matched pair). They will be going into my VAC Phi 200 amp.

Questions for you or anyone with opinion and experience:

1. How long did it take them to burn in?
2. Did you keep your VAC powered on 24/7 during the initial burn-in?
3. I read the RAM Tubeaudiostore.com site, which has them on sale for $75 each, but tubes are matched by a proprietary computer program. Anyone with experience with this, is it worth the added cost?

I buy my tubes from Jim McShane, he is great to deal with and provides top notch service. I just received a back-up quad as the set I am running now have been at it for over 1 year in my amp. I think you will find that they will work pretty well out of the box and it won't take too long for them to settle in (30-40 hours). I would never leave my amp on 24/7 for burn-in and always turn mine off if I am not going to be listening to music in the next hour. I was talking to a dealer the other day who told me about a customer who blew up a set of new tubes in a VAC amp because he didn't properly mute the unit when he was getting initial bias set. With new tubes I always start at lowest bias setting and let tubes warm up for 10-15 minutes before bringing up the right voltage.