2. amps-preamps
  3. 156500-23123

ARC LS27 with 6H30P-DR tubes

I bought a ARC LS27 3 years ago and I have loved this preamp and feel it works well in my system:
ARC LS27ARC REF75SEARC PH8VPI Aries 3 - SDS, Ring clamp, feet upgrade, single flywheel motor, super platterLyra delosAurender A10Vandersteen Quatro Wood CTAudioquest Water & Niagara XLR, etc...
My LS27 had 1025 hours on it and everything was sounding great and I have been very happy so I have lost the "upgrade bug". A relative of mine bought an ARC LS17SE and I started thinking about what my next step would be in the unlikely event I ever wanted to upgrade my LS27. Any upgrade would be costly and provide diminishing returns... was what I was thinking.

I sent an email to the owner of my local Audio Research dealer and asked a what-if? question. I asked him what the best next step in terms of sonic improvement vs money invested would be. LS28? REF5SE? REF6? These would all cost me lots of $$$ to upgrade to so I wanted to know the best bang for buck for my system. The answer he gave me surprised me. He did compare and contrast the performance of the 3 models listed above but his ultimate recommendation was to keep my LS27 and get a set of real 6H30P-DR tubes.

He gave me a recommendation of where to get them and I did. I installed them and decided to listen right away although I knew break-in would be needed.
Hour 1. Detailed, bright, dynamic, glare, not an open sound. Showed promise.
I did a simple break in of 25 hours.

Hour 25. Huge sound-stage, pin-point imaging, dynamics that I have never heard before, open and clean, musical and not Hi-Fi, totally amazing.

I simply love the sound and the jump in performance is big! Before, on good recordings it seemed that the musical performance was right there, in my listening room. Now, almost everything I listen to (Hi Res in my A10 and even a couple of Qobuz tracks sound very, very good.
I hope the sound stays where it is but my guess is the as the tubes break-in further, things will change.

Does anyone have any other experience with 6H30P-DR in ARC stuff? Like my REF75SE or PH8? Or any advise or thoughts in break-in time or anything else in general?
Can these tubes really make the difference I am hearing?


pilrem
dweller's avatar
dweller
3,786 posts
 
I purchased some DR tubes from BAT ($300/ea) and, yes, they made a huge difference in my VK-300SE integrated. Tried to buy more but they were sold out. Mine were vintage 1992. What does it say on the tube base of yours? Would like to know where you bought and how much you paid? Can't understand why these can't be replicated today? I guess people just getting dumber... 
pilrem OP
40 posts
 
I was excited to drop them so I made the mistake of not taking good photos of them pre-install. I cant quite remember what was printed on the tubes. I was more interested in looking over what was inside the tube. I was looking for the tell-tale signs of real vs fake. Big Clean Flaps, and the Big Getter, etc.

When I compared them to the stock 6H30s that came in the LS27 the difference is obvious. I definitely am not an expert at verifying these tubes but based on my limited research and mainly based on the recommendation of where to buy these from an ARC dealer that I completely trust... I bought theme here: 

https://www.partsconnexion.com/cgi-bin/sc/productsearch.cgi?storeid=*20b7b4534d0a875b77f1157d6bb78322a865&search_field=6h30

I paid $199.00 each plus $5 for matching.

I am not a technical guy when it comes to audio electronics, but I have been listening critically for years and the whole reason I posted in the first place was to comment on what a great difference these tubes made for me. YMMV
dweller's avatar
dweller
3,786 posts
 
It's funny because the magazines at the time (10-15 years ago) said that Victor (owner of BAT at the time) had bought up all remaining stock of the DR tubes. Victor is from Russia and probably had connections there. Now, magically, there are more DRs to be had! Amazing! And for $100 less than I paid. Something is rotten in the Kremlin.
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