Phono preamp tube rolling.


As upgrade rush bites again, planning to perform some tube rolling on my Rouge Ares Magnum. Please share some experience with tube rolling on pure tube circuit topology phono preamps. Practical experiences are preferred. Theoretical options are welcome too.
surfmuz
Andy at Vintage Tube Service in Michigan.

i was hoping @mulveling would weigh in also, he has a wealth of experience and some great phono stages as well. Where did you end up w the Herron ? 

on ARC , i got some serious hours out of the 6H30 in my REF5se, but keep changing the oil !
Fortunately, these small signal triodes tolerate a lot of abuse and can still sound”good” while being abused, if you don’t measure anything and are subject to listener bias. Which is all good. But it’s best not to draw conclusions like A is better than B based on a blind substitution of one for another type. If you think it’s fun and rewarding to tube roll, I submit its even more fun if you do some reading to gain a better understanding of what you’re doing. The science is fascinating.
@chakster 
thank you for a lot of useful info.
You right that Japanese tubes are not discovered well. It wold be interested to hear from people who tried them.  
I tried the National brand 12AT7, and I did not like them compared to at least four or five other brands of European or US origin. In fact a Chinese made tube was the best of the bunch in my 12AT7 survey, but it had a very short lifespan which I considered unacceptable. The next best were GE gold star and Mullard. ECC81 is the Euro equivalent. ECC81= 12AT7.