My experience and that of many Doshi Alaap (preamp) owners is diametrically opposite to Viridian's, which leads me to believe that the design of the component is a critical factor in which tubes work best.
If a component is designed and executed from the ground up with a modern tube in the circuit, as Nick's designs are, then that tube may provide the best performance. I've done plenty of NOS tube rolling and Nick and other owners have done more. I've found one vintage line stage tube that slightly outperforms its current production equivalant in some sonic areas, though not all. But in both phono stage tube positions no NOS tube compares with readily available, fairly inexpensive new tubes from the likes of JJ.
In a vintage component, or a modern component designed around vintage tubes, the opposite may apply. I doubt there's any other hard and fast rule about old vs. new that we'd get much agreement on.
If a component is designed and executed from the ground up with a modern tube in the circuit, as Nick's designs are, then that tube may provide the best performance. I've done plenty of NOS tube rolling and Nick and other owners have done more. I've found one vintage line stage tube that slightly outperforms its current production equivalant in some sonic areas, though not all. But in both phono stage tube positions no NOS tube compares with readily available, fairly inexpensive new tubes from the likes of JJ.
In a vintage component, or a modern component designed around vintage tubes, the opposite may apply. I doubt there's any other hard and fast rule about old vs. new that we'd get much agreement on.