A question about tube rolling

Hi Ya’all,

At the ripe old age of 70, I have discovered tube rolling.

Up until now, I have simply been about getting good tubes, say Telefunken or GE or Siemens, stick ‘em in there, and phougheadaboudit

I bought a Pro-ject Tube Box DS2 because I just wasn’t getting what I thought I should be getting out of my Koetsu Onyx and Leopard from my Beard P505.

Out of the box (pun unintended), the Tube Box made an immediate improvement.

But, still not quite there. I looked at the tubes and they were unbranded. So I went shopping on eBay and found a pair of Telefunken red tips for $280.

It turns out that the seller lived a half hour away, and so he drove them over to me.

it also turns out that he had 10,000+ tubes - or so he says - in his basement. So he comes with the set that I paid for, and three other sets, and he leaves them with me.

As some of you know, I’m a cheap rat bastard who refuses to spend more than $0.50 on lamp wire for my speaker cable (ok I lied, I do have Monster cable). So even though he explains that he’s got exotic Valvos and Teslas and who knows what else, costing up to $1,900 a pair, I stick to a $500 ceiling ‘cause … I’m a cheap rat bastard … and there’s also that law of diminishing returns sorta thing.

A week later, he brings me four more sets.

One of those sets cost $800. And they sound, well better (although there was a situation where a $50 tube that he brought for me to put in one of the line stages of the Beard sounded better than the $250 one.).

I have listening sessions once a week, so I got my guests involved one evening. I used David Crosby’s “Laughing” from “If Only I Could Remember My Name” and we listened to it over and over, with each of the four sets of tubes, and I explained to them what to listen for in the bass guitar line, the pedal steel at the top, Crosby’s voice, the chorus (and particularly if Joni Mitchell’s and Steven Stills voice were distinctly recognizable as THEIR voices, with nuanced inflection, not just voices separated out but not of any distinct characterization), the acoustic depth and colorations around each voice and instrument, if everything was planted in a specific location on the soundstage, and last but not least, the size - width, breadth and height - of the stage. Then I asked them to pick the set that they liked best and to explain why, according to each of the parameters.

They had so much fun doing that, that going forward I will be keeping tubes of different signatures just to do these exercises with new guests, as they volunteered after the listening sessions that they felt that they learned to hear in a way that they never considered before.

Which was exactly the point of the exercise.

But I digress.

The tube guy said he had some more tubes to try out.

This time I say “Ok. Hit me with your best shot. Throw the very best pair of tubes you have at me. Just sock-it-to-me! (There I just dated myself). And just don’t tell me what they cost!”

So he comes with five sets. Some are really interesting, they have … getters? And one is that best shot. And one is a set that he says are a little weird but he thinks that they will work.

So, up until now, I have been able to hear differences in each set. And some are better, some worse, some do some things better, some do other things better, some are just different.

Of the five, I just go straight for that best shot.

Holy. Efffing. Crap.

Let me say that again, for effect.

Holy. Effing. Crap.

I had thought that my system was up there. And, well, it is: one can say that it is detailed, precise, deep, exciting, dramatic.

This is now… I guess the words I would use are true, and honest…and effortless. Whatever it is, it’s a whole other level.

I did not think that just one pair of 12AX7s or ECC83s could make such a humongous difference.

They are from 1957, and cost twice as much as the Tube Box that they are going in

So, the question is …. There was to be a question, remember? It says so right up there at the top, in the subject line. The question is: I guess I know the answer. Let me put it this way: has anyone had a similar nirvana-like experience just from upgrading tubes, and should I be paying these kinds of prices for them?