I changed a Tube and…

@noromance 

No. I am not suggesting that at all. 

It is established fact that Siemens produced a great many tubes for Telefunken. They are labelled for Telefunken but do not (in my years of experience in selling tubes) have the diamond on the bottom. They instead have a number embossed in the glass as is characteristic of Siemens made tubes.

But that wasn't my point.

What I am saying is that Telefunken tubes aren't as great as people think they are. They think that when they buy Telefunken they have somehow bought the defacto best tube out there and in one fell swoop dismiss every other tube as inferior, often without ever having heard many (or in some cases any) other tubes out there. The only thing they've heard are people just like them talking about how great Telefunken tubes are. Truth is, if you secretly swapped out their Telefunken diamond on the bottom tubes with some Ei tubes (aka "Fake Telefunkens") hardly any one of them would notice.

I think Telefunken tubes are good. Very good even. Rarely great. Telefunken made three types of 12AX7, 17mm Smooth Long Plate, 17mm Ribbed Long Plate and the frame grid ECC803S; with the latter often being made by Tesla or Siemens under contract for Telefunken. The ECC803S is a great tube. The garden variety Telefunken 17mm plates are very good, but they are not great.

If you look at the number of variations that Valvo and Siemens made for 12AX7 such as the E83CC, E283CC, and the mC series of long plate tubes (e.g. mCp, mC1, mC2, mC3, mC4, mC5, mC6) and then the variations within each of those (for instance Valvo made three types of mC1 tubes alone – 45º Halo Getter (1957), 45º Foil Getter (1956), and Tilted Square Getter (1956-7)) there are dozens and dozens of different tubes that do all the things that Telefunken tubes do and do them better.

And listen, I don't know you, maybe you know all of these other tubes intimately well and still feel that way. I would respect that tremendously. 

In any event its late, I'm tired, and tired also of seeing the same old Telefunken propaganda out there and chose to vent my frustration on a stranger that I am sure has far better things to do then engage with an exhausted, temporarily disgruntled tube dork.

Have a wonderful night.

@chickenoregg  Perhaps I should have been more clear in my recommendation. I meant original Telefunken not the newer stuff. With diamonds–I know of no other. Included in that are those branded Fisher and Dynaco. While I am no expert, I have rolled hundreds of tubes over almost 40 years. I have found Siemens E83CC to have some of the characteristics of the Telefunkens but lacking the dynamics. Indeed my recommendation was in the context of the OP’s post of them being a new roller and may not be in the market for relatively rare and expensive Valvos. However, I do agree Teles are not the pinnacle of the clean and transparent. I use Teles in the regulators but a different tube in the phono amplification stage which has aa the benefits of the Teles but with more finesse. 

Anyone know why there are different getter shapes?

It makes sense for manufacturers to put cheap and available tubes into the gear they market.  The tubes they offer must be common and easily replaceable.  Because not everyone's taste and system characteristics are the same, there is no clear consensus on what constitutes and upgrade, so why should a manufacturer spend extra on fancy tubes that may make the sound "worse" to certain buyers?  This does leave it up to the customer to experiment and hunt for "better" tubes.  A local dealer in my area carries a wide array of vintage and new tubes and customers frequently borrow tubes to try in their gear to find what sounds best.  This dealer offers recommendations based on what the customer says he wants to change about the sound and discourages obsessive tube rolling (this damages tube sockets), but he knows that some swapping and matching may be needed by his customers.

@thecarpathian 

My understanding is that different shaped getters were used to guide/control where the barium patches ended up. I've always though of them like a wine glass that's designed for specific type of wine to maximize how that particular wine hits your nose and tongue; e.g.. like how a Bordeaux glass differs from a Burgundy glass.

They are also indicative of a date of manufacture. But after the vacuum is created during the production process, they really serve no purpose. I have tubes with huge foil getters that broke off at the post were it meets the mica and it rattles around in there like a maraca. They work fine, like more prone to issues down the road, but a tube with a broken getter is far from a horse with a broken leg.