Tube Basics 101: What is a rectifier tube for?

Hi, Phillip , thanks for your response , my amp its totally new , unhappy with the Capacitors it came with i bought the best brand i could find , "Jensen" i changed three of them , , the amp its beautifully made Point to point and is starting to sound much to my liking , i just changed the RCA  5R4WGB rectifier with another one , can't tell which brand is it as the lettering its almost gone , BUT it made a difference in sound , i think both channels play more balanced , your are right about the potentiometer , it does play unbalanced at lower volume , which indicates that the issue is the potentiometer . fortunately i have one made especially for AN , by Audio Note , thanks again !!!

Just found this thread. It is too long to read all at once, but I have to disagree with Elizabeth. I believe rectifier tubes do make a difference in sound, based on my own experience.

What she actually said was: "The rectifier tube is not the direct cause of the quality of the sound in the power supply. The whole design of the power supply is what affects the sound quality. i personally would say as long as the rectifier tube is working properly, that is all it can do. A ’quality’ tube may be better because it actually does the job better." Is that the "wrong" part you’re talking about? 

+++++ for Andy at Vintage Tube
he has the chops and test equipment and is frugal enough to not just push esoterica...although he has those....

i agree with Elizabeths more recent post on ordering the priority for tube rolling....with maybe one caveat..... with my ARC Ref5se the addition of a TungSol in the power supply was for me anyway revelatory.....

tube rolling is fun and can be relatively inexpensive...

remember it is all about the music......

All great info,
I personally like tube rectification over SS. I can agree with the idea that there are quick diminishing returns on the "quality" of the rectifier tube, but not in the reliability or longevity of the tube. Yes, there is hype on tubes, but I always opt for the military or industrial "JAN" tubes, eg. = "joint army-navy" built during the Cold War. These are the tubes you can "set and forget" for 10 years of good life.

Why? they are the classic NOS tubes that were made with high quality. Because, if the US or Russia were under nuclear attack, do you think they would depend on unreliable tubes? Shit, the Russians even used them in their fighter jets, b/c they perform better than SS under while flying in the air during a nuclear attack.