12au7 tube?

Wait, what am I doing??!

Terrible, terrible tube! 

Mattw73, great information. I liked your knowledge and experience on various tubes. Sounds like you’ve done a lot of listening to different types as I have. Well I know these things sound crazy but that’s why this is a hobby. I can’t remember all the ridiculous hours I spent during the day and late at night comparing the difference between one brand of tube against another. Well most of that is behind me. Today I find myself doing comparisons with cables. Give or take, the 1940’s to 1960’s was the era of vacuum tubes. Probably continued up into the 80’s. No where in time did we have so many great vacuum tube companies making quality tubes as we did in the era. Today, we are in a different era,  The era of hifi cables. Many different cables have many different characteristics. With getting the correct tubes in the circuit and right cabling on the components, we have great opportunities to get fantastic sounding systems. I believe getting the correct tubes in a circuit is extremely important but so is the cabling between the components. Of course there is no end to tweaking as I’ve even gone as far as to change Capacitors in my components which is another world of tweaks of its own. 

One point also, we are also in the era of hifi Capacitors as there are so many variety and wonderful and beautiful sounding capacitors being made today from various good companies.