6922 tube selection

I agree with Marco1 regarding the Siemens made/Telefunken branded 7DJ8/PCC88 at Upscale. Admittedly more expensive than what you're looking at but when I used them in my Premier 16LS2 and Premier 140 they were about as good as you could get without spending way more money and even then, not sure if the uber expensive varieties were really worth it in comparison.

I use 7dj8's from Kevin @Upscale in my TTVJ phono stage. Matushita or Phillips.

My point is I've dealt with a couple of guys who were honest and did not sell me junk.

I've seen lots of comments from people that use Andy, Brent, and Kevin. I don't recall ever seeing a bad comment about any of them. I've used Kevin to re-tube my BAT preamp a couple of times. Last time he steered me to the Philips 7DJ8s. They sound WONDERFUL and I don't recall them being that expensive. The point is to buy from someone you can trust. With a preamp as popular as the 17LS they will usually have lots of experience and feedback from customers that you can take advantage of.

I would never buy tubes off of Ebay unless I had a tube tester (and I don't). A short could cost you big in repairs to your amp and the bargain tube won't seem like such a bargain then.

Dick

I sincerely appreciate the input and responses received to date. That is what has made this such a wonderful site that I always enjoy working with. I have not really wanted to go the NOS route. I am concerned about purchasing some one elses used tubes. Testing machines just don't exist in every drugstore like they used to!

The choice was either the Electro Harmonix gold pin or Genalex Gold Lion gold pin. Comments well taken with 'don't go cheap on me now' recommendations.

Below is a quote regarding tube life from the C-J website (FYI):
"1500 hours for signal tubes (small ones-6922) and 3000 hours for power tubes (big ones, like the KT88 or 6550).