Reverse Matched Triode Tubes

Not sure if theres any relevence or not but I have owned both the Thor amp and linestage for many years ( with the upgrades ) and have dabbled a couple times with NOS tubes in both and always have come back to the stock tubes in the end. I have never had an issue with any tubes from Thor and have also talked about it with Paul Marks ( owner ) and come to the conclusion that he's done is homework with the stock tubes and I find the prices on these replacement tubes seem quite fair when you consider the frustration involved with trying to find the right NOS pairs,quads etc. not sure if that helps or not but just my 2 cents worht.

Thor is using dual triode tubes (looks like 12AX7 family tubes). They define "reverse matching" as matching triode 1 of tube 1 with triode 2 of tube 2, and triode 2 of tube 1 with triode 1 of tube 2.

I don't understand why they use this topology in their amps, it seems like it would be easy enough to straight match the sections (just a matter of which pins on the tube socket are used by which circuit).

The sonic benefits should be the same as for any other preamp matched tube situation - better interchannel balance and distortion characteristics.

Details at: http://www.thoraudio.com/Tubes.htm