Has anyone compared Rogue RP-7 to Cary SLP05 and / or Audio Research Ref 5se?

@ghdprentice: Are you referring to the "The Perfect Sound: A Memoir in Stereo" by Garrett Hongo?  It's an excellent book.

I thought that the reason that Cary sent them out with EHs was because they were readily available & affordable. 

They WERE cheap and abundantly available, before the recent events of this year. They were also a fun example of "wow these are cheap as hell but they can actually sound GREAT in the right slot!". I know people will come out with "my 1941 space forces 6SN7GTSF with double helix plates and radioactive green glass BLOW THEM AWAY". I have many vintage greats here too. The Russian EH and Tung-Sol 6SN7 still have their place.

Okay.

I mean I wasn’t saying that mine sounded horrible with the EH tubes in it, I’ve always thought that it sounded quite good. It was just that when I got a chance to roll pairs of 6SN7s & VT231s in the balanced input sockets I did hear some differences, and depending upon which pair I was rolling, the differences were dramatic. Air and detail (which, if I am not misusing the term, made the imaging better). However, I am cognizant that this may not be what everyone is looking for in a preamp, but in my smallish listening room combined with the stuff I like to listen to, it seems to be my cup of tea. For right now, anyway.

Way back when I got my V12, Cary was sending them out with Ruby tubes.

@garyalex 

Yep, The Perfect Sound… that is it.

I just did a quick search & I guess that is a nonfictional work?

Did Hongo get into which tubes it was that he used that screwed his amp up?