How important is it for you to attain a holographic image?

Newbee, "All" of the tubes I mentioned were Telefunken; they were NOS and brand new tubes, that had identical numbers.

There is a thread here where knowledgeable people discussed this very same thing extensively; comparing NOS tubes, to identical brand new tubes; maybe it could be looked up. I don’t remember all of the conclusions they came to, but from what I can recall the difference was one of quality as opposed to sonics.

I bought the brand new tubes, and I was delighted, now I'm buying some more.  Since quality is a long term thing, that remains to be seen.

"Serendipity", there is an interesting word. It's so unique that the definition is insufficient; therefore, I will illustrate serendipity.

There is a problem with my sound-stage; the right channel is louder than the left. At first I thought it was the equipment, after a lot of troubleshooting, I discovered that wasn't the problem.

The left side of my listening room is composed of a huge sliding glass door to the patio; that was the problem, a glass wall is bad news. That wasn't the only problem with that glass wall.

The sliding glass door is single pane glass, (no good for the winter) and I want double pane glass. For reasons I have yet to understand, contractors can't replace the door.

I was listening to music, and at the same time, I could feel the winter chill coming right through that huge single pane door; unpleasant, and bad for the heating bill, something had to be done.

I went to Home Depot, bought some foam insulation, came back and taped it all over the door. Now, I can't get to the patio, but who needs a patio in the winter.

Covering that huge door with insulation was work; time to settle back in the sweet spot and do some serious listening. Is it my imagination, or does my sound-stage sound balanced. Wow! I can't believe it; that insulation over the glass door corrected the channel imbalance.

Now that's "Serendipity".

Serendipity continues or "Holography part II"; take your choice of titles for this post.

After I taped the insulation to the glass door in order to conserve heat, when I settled back into the sweet spot for a long listening session, the sound-stage was balanced. (the insulation on the door served as perfect room treatment) It had never been balanced before; the right channel was louder than the left channel, and turning the left channel up was not a good solution for holography.

A balanced sound-stage is essential for this phenomenon, now that I had it, I couldn't stop listening; instruments floating in air, non existent speakers, everything there is to be had with good holography was mine; this is the end of the line for me, my quest is over.

" this is the end of the line for me, my quest is over."

It is cool though that you were able to narrow it down to that, but what is your plan for next summer?