In response to the poster's question, if the rest of the signal chain is very clean, I prefer siemens grey plate cca. If things are not "quite there", however, the telefunken cca's are a little softer, and i often find them preferable. Several times i have noticed that the telefunkens sounded better when equipment was new, but the siemens sounded best when the same equipment was finally broken in. Not too scientific, just my observations.