Tube Rolling - Any tips or caveats

I'll add be sure to buy from a reputable person or dealer. If you plan to do lot of tube rolling you might consider a tube tester. The most important thing is to make sure your tube doesn't have a short. Most testers should be able to test for shorts, even an inexpensive one.

- Should I A-B test different tubes, swapping in/out quickly?

1 - I would not swap tubes quickly especially NEW/NOS because I have found they need a couple of hundred hrs to break in.

Can I mix & match brands, or NOS vs. New etc...?

2 - If you can manually adjust the bias you should be OK BUT I would not mix brands (although it may produce some interesting results). I have found different brands of the same tube types have their own distinct sound.

Should I start from source and move downstream (ph-stage, Line stage,... power amp) or vice versa?

3 - I have an integrated amp so I have no experience here

Get VERY familiar with the sound of your pre-amp with stock tubes. Make notes of the areas that you would like improve i.e. more impactful bass, extended highs etc. Once you have a list of attributes that you wish to improve, research for a tube that exhibit said traits or post on this forum for tubes suggestion i.e. looking for a 12AX7 with extended highs etc. When searching for NOS tubes you must have a game plan and an objective, otherwise it becomes an expensive guessing game.

Thank you mofimadness for that link. That is a great article. My experince with NOS Amperex 6dj8's in my phono section mirror the comments in his article. A lot of good info in the world of NOS preamp tubes.

Thanks for the tips.

BRF, I know what I want, extended bass and more dynamics. I have already been lining up some reference recordings that I have been listening to for a while.

I have already purchased a pair of telefunken 12AX7's so that will be the starting point. I realized after purchasing them that the SP-16 has 3 tubes in the phono section. And I spoke with ARC and they suggested to leave in the stock tube at the input as it must be low noise. I also wasn't aware that there was a low-noise so I have no way of knowing if the telefunken are or not (other than trying them out).

Knowing the above, next time I will buy my tubes from someone sepcialized in tubes, as recommended.

As for the Mofi's Audioasylum link, it was very informative, but I am not sure I ready to switch to 5751's.