Oh boy, I hope many of the assembled here are lucky enough to have a co-habitant with the hearing skills of mrs. xenolith. To wit: recently scored a matched quad of 1949 Sylvania flat plate 6BL7GT, generally considered the best sounding of the rather obscure, but excellent sounding, 6BL7 tube. So I swapped out the matched quad of 1952 Sylvania T-plate 6BL>A in our two-of-a-kind 2x6BL7 + 4xKT77 monoblocks. I thought they sounded great with the new flat plate tubes. mrs. x waited about a week before she gently told me that the...and I kid you not..."soundstage seems closed in". WTF! Knowing that I was running the best input tubes possible, I replied, paraphrasing ’honey, that can’t be, these are the best input tubes possible’. She smiled and said "OK". About a week later, I started to hear evidence of her claim. I told her so. "Let’s swap just one of the other tubes (1952 T-plates) in she says. "OK" I says. You guessed it, it sounded glorious! I had that ’this is what I’ve always hoped our stereo sounded like moments’. Did a little research and found a few folks who discovered the same superiority of mixing 1:1 flat plate to T-plate 6BL7. She was already a keeper at 40 years together, but WOW, she can still present previously unknown talents that make our life better. I hope some of you are similarly blessed.
