I've always preferred the sound of Telefunkens in my Jadis equipment, which have included JPL, JP80 and JP200 preamps, as well as the JA80 amps. EIs, Amperex and Seimens were also good to my ears. Telefunkens to me sound more uniform in tonal balance than other tubes--just make sure you get the real things. There are others in these forums who disagree, feel the Teles are too bright and who prefer NOS Mullards, but I never really liked them, because I felt THEY were too bright (however, given that the last thing people seem to say about Mullards is that they're bright, maybe my Mullards were really rebranded Brimars, as Andy Bouwman of Vintage Tube Services suggested). Since you're near your tube supplier, maybe you could have him come over with a couple of brands to try out. You could even experiment, using one of the better tubes in the first position (following the signal from the inputs) and two lesser tubes in the other two spots, if the cost of the best tubes is an issue--that's a trick another Audiogoner mentioned in another thread that Andy Bouwman and Mike O'Keefe had showed me as well. And don't forget the tape loop option, it was generally felt at the time I had my JPL (shown me by the then-importer Victor Goldstein) that the tape loop input was the best sounding input on the preamp. I always felt that the 12AU7 in the CD input circuit was an attempt to soften the harsh sound of the early CD players, but it's not really needed now given the improvements over the years in digital sound reproduction.
