winged c 6550c is not good for ref 5se??

Brandon-

go w/ these guys' advice. The REF5 SE is a very special piece of gear, you do not want to alter its sound/ability to deliver pure listening pleasure. Keep us posted on your tube selection. Happy Listening!

Hi,

please update which route you went with the tubes.

Veerapaneni ... I'm a coward. I bought 6550 WE tubes from ARC for my Ref 5 SE, Ref CD-8 and Phono PH-8 and they 'ain't' cheep. But even if Kevin Deal found a good batch of original "Winged C" tubes they 'ain't' cheap 'neither.'

If you have a hankering to try rolling, call Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio and ask his advice.

Having said that, I buy all of my 6H30s (platinum grade) from Kevin and never had a problem.

OTOH, I've had mixed results with Upscale's KT-120s. Just seems that when sourced from ARC, they bias much closer (within 1 or 2 mV between set tube and slave). It's been more hit or miss from Upscale. Dunno why??? Maybe he matches pairs using different specs than ARC.

Hi there,the other day ,I blew the 6550we in my pre.First one since ive
owned it.I bought a pair of cryoed off ebay.Hopefully that was the right
thing to do.Im happy with the sovtek sound.Not sure what do go for
next.These have got 1400 hours on them.

I had the same experience as the OP. The email response from Upscale was:

"We received your order, but unfortunately we cannot fill it. The SED 6550C used to be the best tube for your application, however the last batch of tubes to come out of the SED factory before it was shut down, have had issues with a soft vacuum. In products like ARC, Rogue, VTL, and several others, this causes the tube to fail prematurely.

We recommend, as does Audio Research, the Sovtek 6550WE..."

I was lucky in that I have a few extras so was able to use one of those.