[W9TR]

Paul - I agree with Dan’s advice to start with the 12AT7’s in the MC 2301. They make the most difference in the sound.

The Siemens ECC 801 is a good choice as are the Gold Lions. I slightly prefer the Siemens tubes but to me there is not a huge difference between them. The McIntosh OEM tubes are not on the same level as the Siemens or Gold Lions.

I am still running stock McIntosh KT-88’s in one pair of my MC 2301’s. I’ll change them out to Gold Lion KT-88’s when they finally wear out.

I do have a set of 8 SED Winged ‘C’ KT-88’s that I prefer over the Gold Lions, but I need 24 to re-tube, and they are out of production, so they are headed to my MC 275V when the current KT-88’s wear out.

I haven’t rolled a lot of tubes into my MC 275V. I’m using Gold Lions all around right now. I have run original British Mullard CV 4004 and CV4024 in the 275V and think they sounded very nice. When I wore them out I put in Gold Lions. I didn’t do an A/B compare.

Here’s the catch - by the time I pull the amps out, get the covers off, swap the tubes, power up for 20 minutes, listen, cool down, swap tubes, power up for 20 minutes, listen, cool down, rinse, repeat....I’ll be damned if I can really tell a big difference with my imperfect audio memory and overall lack of patience for this kind of stuff. Ultimately I just want to listen.

Telefunken and Siemens 12AX7’s and 12AT7’s are in demand because in some amplifier circuits they make a huge difference in the sound. My experience with these tubes in McIntosh gear is that for whatever reason they don’t make as big a difference as in other brands. But they do make a difference.

I swapped out the original tubes in my C 1100 with Gold Lions and could hear no difference at all. Nada. So back in with the OEM tubes.

My C2300 is a different beast - it sounds much better with the Gold Lion tubes so that’s what has stayed in place.

This summer when I replace the aging MM cartridge in my Rega with a new MC cart I’ll also be looking for a new set of MC phono tubes for my C 2300.