Doug
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I've had my CSP3 with 25th mods, and additional custom mods, for almost seven years. For most of those seven years two different SE 274B Aqua tubes handled rectifier duties in a completely trouble free manner. Besides being trouble free, they made consistently beautiful music.
For the past year a Cryotone 5AR4 has been used. It has done a fine job and delivered great sound. I have enjoyed the Cryotone, but have wanted to compare it to the new Aqua II. The reason for the delay in doing the comparison is that I was a little hesitant to plop down $300 for a tube that has received some bad press regarding reliability.
And then GroovySauce put one up for sale a few weeks ago at a decent price so I grabbed it. He actually sent two of them to me because he had a second one with a good number of hours on it that he was no longer using. I have used both for several days each with no issues at all, and I can say without hesitation that the Aqua II is the best sounding rectifier I have had in my CSP3. The other three tubes are Cryotone ECC88s, and they play very well with the Aqua II.
I have been using Sophia Electric tubes for fifteen years or so and have never had any premature failures. Included in the list of tubes used are 2.5 volt 300Bs (for 2A3 amps), Classic 300Bs, 274B Aquas, and now 274B Aqua IIs. Richard and Sue are easy to work with and they'll even do a bit of wheeling and dealing with you in certain situations. I'm very fond of them and their tubes.
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