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Best Tubes on Market today?

I'd like to upgrade tubes on my Mastersound Compact 845 SET.
I'm getting a loud buzzing noise from both channels at  listening position which I find extremely annoying.
 My current tubes are Shuguang 845C (cheap Chinese electron). Pre amp tubes are Tungsram ECC82 and driver tubes 6SN7 EH. Probably all cheap stock tubes. I Love the the sweet sound but noise level is unacceptable.  Also very audible transformer noise, but I doubt there is a fix for that. Are there other ways to minimize tube/transformer noise?

What are the most reliable aforementioned tubes out there and what is the best place to get them?
Upscale audio seems to have quite a selection. PSVANE was also recommended by some. 
 I would prefer not to spend more than $600 on 845 tubes and hoping for reliable clean sounding tubes all around.    
I also have C2600 preamp with stock tubes. Any advice on those? 
ei001h
perkri
909 posts
 
Hi.

I had a similar problem. Humming transformer, noise from the channels. Replaced the big electrolytic caps and most of the noise went away. Then swapped out all the caps in the amp and it is close to black. Suspect I would need an AC conditioner to get rid of the rest. Amp is 25 years or so years old. Age takes its toll on caps. Not sure how old your amp is, but might be worth pulling the power caps out an measure them. Just a thought.

P
shoff
133 posts
 
+1 on Andy's Vintage Tubes.  He is the best I've ever worked with.
atomheart411
3 posts
 
I replaced a pair of Gold Lion kt77’s with Wathen Cryotone kt77’s and was impressed enough to keep them in. Very dynamic and sweet sounding to my ears. 
https://www.wathenspeakers.com/index.html

robert53
472 posts
 
Andy's Vintage Tubes is very good. I also had a good experience with Vacuum Tubes Inc.. After purchasing NOS tubes from a few places and some of the tubes went bad quickly, I bought a set of RCA12au7 Clear Top from Vacuum Tubes Inc.. They were cheaper than anywhere else, and are still working perfectly after a few months.
bigkidz
3,397 posts
 

Tube recommendations are subjective.  For example I build a DHT DAC.  We used NOS tubes which are getting hard to find these days.  But no being new tubes, I could not sell the product retail.  We tried Chinese DHT tubes which in the beginning were just OK.  Then we measured the specs and adjusted the voltage and then everything snapped into place.  For the noise, as suggested above, try to isolate to see what the cause is from.  Basic transformer noise try to cover the transformer or shield the AC cables.


Happy Listening

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