Tube Rolling Time

@racamuti @facten 

Thanks to both of you for the recommendations and information.  I will follow your recommendations and report back.  Have a great evening and take care of yourselves.  Be safe and well.

+1 for recommendations from Brent Jessee. He gave me a few 6922 suggestions for my VAC linestage - ultimately I chose a pair of NOS Mullard 7308's which made a material sonic improvement for my system.

The key to tube rolling is to use well balanced tubes with nice flat sides, tubes like KT88. Those roll really good. Rounded tubes like 300B wobble and roll all over the place. D105, don’t even ask. 12ax7 seems like they would be okay but the wide base makes it so they always roll in a circle. Round and round they go, never really getting anywhere. That’s tube rolling for ya.

Millercarbon,  Ya, I watched a 12ax7 that I paid $125.00 for roll in a semi circle right off the counter onto a stone floor! Went right back and told the guy on ebay what happened and bought another one, hoping that he would take pity and sell me another at a discount-he didn't.

I stumbled across (not literally) a little Dennis Had Inspire SEP amp a few years ago and although it requires efficient speakers (which I have), it has 4 tubes...rectifier, input, and 2 output tubes. This means it's a tube rollers dream since there are so few...consequently I have a drawer full of tubes for the thing that could easily last decades, and the really good news is it's the best sounding amp I've ever owned.