Tube Rolling In Audio Research Phono Preamp

Wow, thanks to everyone for all the great replies! I had a feeling that your opinion may differ from ARC's. I will give some vintage tubes a go, possibly Amperex white label PQ's.
Steve

Rodman, It has not come as a shock to me at all. The fact that scare tactics have always been used as a means of getting people to pay more for something than its worth!!
"When these are gone they'll not be anymore" Yeah right.
There'll always be something to replace what's supposely not available anymore, that's what capitalism is all about.
We're paying $3.69 a gal. for gas right now because of a so call shortage of oil, when there's enough oil in our reserves to last for the next 75 to 100 yrs. All the gov. has to do is let some of that reserve oil out for 30 days and the price of gas goes down immmediately.
Keep believing there's no more tubes available and like gas the price will keep going up!

The Amperex white label PQs should be a great way to learn what is possible beyond the stock tubes. I've run a variety of Amperex, Telefunkens, Siemens 6DJ8s and 7308s in the ARC PH7 with results easily better than stock.

The trick will to use tubes that are quiet. Before purchasing pricey NOS tubes, get some assurance from the seller that they've been tested for noise. In a vinyl system the majority of all signal amplification happens in the phono stage and you'll learn pretty quickly if its tubes are microphonic or otherwise noisy. To an extent all tubes are noisy. This can be diminished (more or less based on the tube's condition) by using some sort of dampening. I don't know if the PH3 came with tube damping O-rings but ARC includes them with the PH7. And better than those are the ones from Herbies Audio Labs (no affiliation, happy customer). Best of luck with your tube rolling!

Tim

Rodman99999 is absolutely right! Make sure you have some spare tubes so you can wait till the price goes down on the new and IMPROVED ones, and have GOLD put away for when the dollar no longer buys anything good. POLK432

Polk432- Funny you should mention that: I bought my gold in 1999, when it was $275.00 an ounce. Gold (like platinum, oil, real estate, and NOS vacuum tubes) is a limited commodity. What is in the ground is going to run out eventually, and God isn't making any more(Siemens, Telefunken, Valvo, Amperex, Mullard, etc. aren't in business now, and won't be ever again)!! That's why the price of all of those things keeps going up. What's being manufactured today, as far as tubes, is done so as quickly and cheaply as possible and will never perform sonically as well as the quality tubes of yesterday. The exception to that statement would be KR Enterprises, Western Electric and EAT. Have you checked their tube prices lately? (http://www.musicdirect.com/product/73403) (http://www.westernelectric.com/pricing.asp)