AES - AE3 Linestage

I had the Hexfreds and Caps changed to "better" than even DJH spec, starting with the plain original AE-3.
I really was surprised by this little pre. I thought/think it is fantastic.
I was frankly afraid of changing it. Thank goodness it did nothing bad but If I had to pay a lot to do it I wouldn't have. My friend did the mods.
The biggest change I can hear are by rolling the 6SN7s. I am sure the rectifier must also have an impact but I still don't have one in that pre.
I already had a good idea of what my 6SN7s sounded like. I bought that pre only to check the sound of tubes I had collected.I some how ended up with a mole of them. I had used themin a driver stage of an amp that I no longer used. I got into the way the sound could be altered by the tube you choose.
The biggest differences between a driver stage position and the input and gain stages are not a difference in overall tone or character the tube adds or detracts in terms of character. Its the presence of extraneous noises. A noisy tube is unbearable in a gain stage. The 6SN7 is a microphonic tube by nature and I never knew so much of what I owned was micro or worse macro phonic and/or just noisy.
The truth hurt.
I spare you the rundown on 6SN7s but the very early Sylvania "chrome Dome" (c.1940s) is the one I prefer, it has a very deep band broad stge and has beautiful euphonic mid bass on top of the superb imagery. Many of Sylvanias black T plates, with 3 rivets, that face each other with the heavily chromed envelope share the attributes I have just described.
Yes- of course there are differences the WGT is quicker the GT is a tad loose. The W is in everyones opinion IEO the best. That's a no brainer getting a good pair is nearly impossible.
I have them several pairs and yes they are as good as I could ask or want, but people play them to death and sell them anyway. I got burned too many times looking for a good pair of Ws. It costs to much to learn this lesson.
BTW Has anyone used an ECC32 in this preamp? Sorry if that constitutes a threadjack.

Thanks, Mechans

I'm currently running a pair of Sylvania VT-231's along with a 70's Mullard 5AR4. I've also run Sylvania GTA's and RCA GTB's but prefer the VT-231's. Good to know that you found tube rolling to be more significant than cap upgrades. Perhaps I'll look into some of the early chrome-domes. Any other suggestions?