Rays Tubes

The nerd in me finds vacuum tubes fascinating, one of the most modern world changing inventions.

I’ve never really thought about delving into the metaphorical nuts and bolts of them, but I think you just kick started me in that direction.

These are fantastic tubes. I use them in my BHK preamp (and in my recently sold Primaluna Dialogue Premiums run as monoblocks).

I have a large stash of NOS 12AU7s--Brimars, Teles, Radiotechnique, Cifte, Mullards and new production Gold Lions. 

The Apos RAY 12AU7s outperform them all, and come with a warranty and a trial period.

I have no affiliation or financial interest here.

These are the real deal and I'm about to begin selling off my very low hour NOS 12AU7 stash.

They are just that good...

andynotadam and dougthebiker, very interesting testimony. These are the same price as current Gold Lion 12au7, ‘Kevin’s stash’ (Upscale Audio’s highest grade). I am tempted to give them a try next time I buy. I had never heard of these before this thread. What is most significant to me is the possibility that current production may be gaining ground on equaling the quality of revered products of the past. Hopefully these quality gains become more common among manufacturers and lessens the impact of the increasing scarcity of true NOS. For me, perceived quality and price/scarcity issues have severely dampened my desire to acquire more tube gear.

I don’t have a lot of experience rolling tubes, but I recently replaced a pair of NOS 12au7’s (BugleBoys) with PSVane Horizon’s in my Backert Labs preamp. I am very pleased with the results.

A buddy of mine swore by these things when he got them. I brought up some NOS and premium current manufactured ones to compare. The 6sn7’s were beaten handily by in all cases by the Dawning series Shuguang, the Elite series Linlai, and Sylvania and RCA NOS. The Rays just sound very lean with weak bass and a bit harsh on the upper end. He also had a 12au / 12ax combination in an amp and they were destroyed by Telefunken and Siemens NOS. These are just re-branded standard issue tubes. The rest is just hype. If you listen to all the YouTube reviews the script is practically the same for all the reviewers.