Gold Lion ECC81 / B739 / 12AT7 Kevin's Stash / No Cryo Reviews

5 Rating 13 Reviews

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Phone:

909.931.9686

Email:

joel.m@upscaleaudio.com

Location:

2058 Wright Avenue,
2058 Wright Avenue
California
91750

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James Ivan Miles

Verified Reviewer

“The NOS Telefunken tubes that shipped with my Aqua LaScala DAC sounded great when they were new, but developed a glare in the midrange over the years. It was finally time to put them out to pasture. If there was ever any NOS magic to the Telefunkens, I forgot about it once I installed the Gold Lions. The Kevin’s Stash level of screening really gets you the best of the best in a new production tube. The La Scala now ships with Gold Lion tubes, so they obviously have the OEM seal of approval. No need to get creative, just order the Kevin’s Stash Gold Lions and be done with it.”

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Posted 3 months ago

“Thanks for letting me raid your stash Kevin! I appreciate you. The Gold Lions were a nice upgrade for my McIntosh C22. They sound delicious.”

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Posted 6 months ago

“I used to purchase NOS (new old stock) tubes for my equipment. Most of the time, NOS was used old stock with low hour use; the cost was high for vintage tubes. The current production Russian audio tubes purchased from Upscale Audio sound just fine. They're more detailed than the stock tubes shipped with the equipment. Be sure to allow at least 20 hours run time before judging their performance. I had a pair of NOS 1960s bugle boy tubes which I compared to these tubes - the current production "reissue" tubes sound much better in my opinion at a fraction of the cost for NOS tubes (if you can truly find "new" old stock tubes in the market place).”

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Posted 8 months ago

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Helpful Report

Posted 9 months ago

“I connected a tube preamp to my integrated tube amp to bypass a volume pot that was choking the life out of my music -- & it sounded better in one way, but worse in others, as a result of too much gain. So. I replaced the 12ax7s with 5751s & the sound improved, but it still wasn't perfect. so I ordered these 12AT7S (even less gain) & voila! Perfection. These "Kevin's Stash" tubes are no joke. Talk about ultra low noise. You pay for that improvement in quality, but it is real & it's worth every dollar.”

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Posted 11 months ago

“These preamp tubes are amazing. I just went all in and bought from Kevin's stash, so I cannot say how much that is adding to the overall effect. These replaced the stock McIntosh tubes in a pair of MC2301 amps I have owned for 5 years, while leaving the stock original KT88 tubes in place. The clarity and width of stage was instantly improved dramatically. I have now toed out the main speakers since there is no longer a dead space in the middle where they were pointed almost directly at the primary listening seat before. This has also widened the listening area where everything sounds amazing. Based on the cost of these tubes relative to the cost of the pair of amps, it was simply an amazing upgrade.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“The "new" Gold Lions sound great among the vintage tubes in my MX-110. Dealing with Upscale was excellent as always. I only wish they still had that great store of new old stock that they used to.”