Buy tubes from Audio Research or not

it is sort of like the way my dad likes to buy cars from his local franchised car dealer. he ends up paying more, but to him it is worth the peace of mind.

with your amp-ARC uses the sames tubes available around the internet, but for the price you pay, they are hand-selected by them and fall within the parameters suited for your amp-----you may end up at the same end result with an aftermarket source, but there is always the chance you may end up with some issues.

Taters if you're worried talk to Howard at Audio Specialists in Studio City he's a great tech, repairs ARC and will know what does and doesn't causes problems.

Do more research. I could be wrong, but I remember there being problems with retubing and biasing VT-100 amps. Unfortunately, I don't remember which version of the amp. What I do remember of the discussion was that Upscale Audio would no longer sell tubes for the amp because of the problems buyers faced installing them.

Tater, with ARC I think you are pretty much going to be stuck with the brand they carry. I'm sure they choose what brands to choose on the basis of reliability
and price points. The sound quality may be good too, but what they have may not be your preference for sound quality. If you checkout the Tubedepot or The Tubestore, they have a pretty good selection as well as some sound descriptions of the tubes. I'm thinking about tube rolling my ARC REF 5 with some NOS tubes . Good luck.

I re-tubed my VT100iii w/matched winged "O"'s and 6H30's from the Tube Store and biased them myself. Leonard at ARC walked me through the process before I did it, even though I did not buy the tubes from ARC. No problems and fine results. I don't agree with Cyclonicman's suggestion to keep ARC tubes around in case of a problem, to deceive ARC. There's right and there's wrong and that aint right.