Amplifier Power tubes - important to sound?

@rzado 

Those prices are ludicrous. And I buy/sell that stuff everyday. And I feel horrible for charging HALF what those guys charge for that stuff. My god. Everyone thinks the crooks are on eBay when its more often than not the opposite.

TubeDepot's prices are outrageous. Their business practices are even worse. Years ago before I knew anything about anything I bought two pairs of tubes from them. RCA and Ei 12AX7, I still have the receipts. The RCA's that came were a short grey plate and a long-grey plate. The Ei's that came were a nickel plate and a smooth grey plate. I didn't know much then but I knew they looked different enough to warrant a phone call. So I called them asking if there had been a mistake or if I had ordered it wrong. They told me it was absolutely fine, it was intentional on their part, I had in fact ordered two RCA 7025s and technically they were both RCA 7025, and as such they were the same and that there would definitely be no difference in how one sounded from the other. Right, got it. Glad I paid an extra $6 per tube for balanced and matched tubes in addition to the $419.98 I paid for a pair of RCA tubes that weren't even a pair. Same with the Ei tubes. Though, I only paid $155.90 for the Ei tubes, which by way of comparison seems reasonable.

I still have all four of those tubes and the receipts. I use them as training/onboarding materials whenever I bring someone new on to explain which way our moral compass points.

I replaced a quad of E-H KT88 with Gold Lions a while ago along with all my phono and preamp tubes.  There was an overall improvement, but it's hard to tell how much was due to the power tubes.

Their contribution was undoubtedly significant. The Gold Lions are a good sounding, generally reliable and long lived tube at a very accessible price point. I ran eight of them for the better part of a decade in my own kit.

The cost of tubes is another reason for going solid state. 

@darkblacksmoke

The VAC amps are amazing. I also have an older statement 450S (no iQ) for my smaller 2nd system. Of all a system’s components - the big VAC power amps were by far my most fruitful "splurge". For every other component slot, I’ve found cheaper items that yield similar or at least "close" results to my splurge-level items (of course a system’s components must synergize) - this includes the VAC preamp and phono. But I don’t know how to replace the big VAC amps - they’re wonderful. I particularly love them with Tung-Sol KT120.

As for the stock tubes you found - Kevin is not trying to be a broker of NOS tubes. His magic is in the voicing of components. I’ve done the KT120 swap and also prefer some of my old 6SN7 in V1, but for the most part these units sound awesome stock. I’m familiar with his choice of EH 6922 Gold and Shuguang 12AX7B (which are long OOP - he has a large stock). I think these sound very good, despite not being chic or expensive. I’ve got a large collection of NOS, and sometimes still choose Kevin’s 12AX7B for phono slots. Not familiar with the Gold Dragon 6922 (Shuguang?) - I thought it’s been a long time since VAC shipped any Gold Dragons. Of my vintage/NOS 6922, those tubes have been a huge pain in the ass for going noisy and various other gremlins - even sourced from reputable tube dealers. Just had a Brent Jesse Mazda 7308 go noisy on me, and before that an Amperex 7308 had its glass tube crumble out of the blue. I’m about to give the EH 6922 another go. I don’t blame Kevin for no longer supplying NOS. He used to favor Amperex 8416 when they were cheap and easy to find, btw.

Edit: I didn't know the Master has a "II" revision now, neat. Do you happen to know what that entails?