McIntosh tube upgrade - worthwhile?


I'm wondering if anyone has ever experienced Sonic improvement when switching from the mediocre JJ stock tubes used by McIntosh?

They tell owners that their tube amps are designed to perform equally well regardless of tubes used.  On the surface this seems incredibly unbelievable.

Anyone notice any changes when they upgrade the tubes? And which tubes do you like to upgrade with. Mostly focused on smaller tubes versus the power tubes which I hear overall don't make much of a difference anyway. But could be wrong.

emergingsoul

You might want to check out Wathen's Cryotone tubes.  Decware is now offering them as an upgrade in their best amps.  At least one reviewer (HiFi Cave on YouTube) preferred their 300B's over the new Western Electric 300B's (which I have in my amp.)

Brent Jesse is great on NOS, though.

+1 for Brent Jessee, huge selection of hard to find tubes. He's not giving them away, but he does have a 30 return policy (with restocking fee), and he does warrant his tubes against failure for 30 days. I've had great experiences with him for 12AU7 family, 6SN7, rectifiers, and power tubes. I've found him to be honest in his recommendations (sometimes preferring a less expensive tube), and he understands which tubes might work better with certain equipment

As a reminder this thread is about whether tubes on a Macintosh amp makes sense to change.

It's not a marketing opportunity to sell tubes.

It may turn out that it doesn't really matter what tubes you use in a McIntosh amplifier.  The amplifier sounds pretty darn good with the JJ stock tubes but could it sound better with different tubes? That's all

 

Well, thanks to all-ya-all it did turn out to be an opportunity to sell tubes. I called Brent and have 4 new tubes on the way! Thanks guys!