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Yes,  the laconic clarity is too rare and too worthy to let go.  My limited experience suggests that the 45 may have this very special ability, taken alone.  Conversely, the "good" 6SN7 is wonderful with respect to tonality and tonal integrity, both.  The good 6SN7 also has acceptable clarity, but I have not heard it developed specificially for this.  Neither have I worked with the 437A, although in years gone by I heard lots of whining about the troubles with finding good ones.  I know nothing about the new production WE tubes except that their saga reads like a soap opera.

I am a little suspicious of the Allen Bradley Club mentality, including vintage (carbon comp) resistors, transformers, caps, etc.  When I have bothered to listen, I have often chosen "selected", "non-inductive" wire wound R for plates and "selected" tantalum R for cathodes and other RCs, etc.  My objective in the trials has been to retain the capability to sound hard and correctly dirty, when that's what is wanted.  Care with stacking, grounding,and other issues goes a long way toward calming things down to allow for a proper "hardness potential" without consistent hardness.  This may also be a factor in the "randomness" capability, which is really only freedom of movement, and not "randomness", per se.

I have read a few DIY posts where guys claim to have solved AC filament noise on 45s by putting a small coil right on the tube pin, or what have you.  I cannot comment on this.  The AC 45s I heard, buzzed and, looking back, I think only certain qualities of those old amps are worth recreating; and not many, at that.  But, I am no longer interested in the vintage sound, at all, that's for sure.

Best regards,
Paul S

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