So, I did not do the clever things I'd been thinking with AU's of 6V6's. I went with a matched pair of JJ 6L6GC's and five of the JJ ECC83S preamp tubes which included a graded and balanced ECC83S in the phase inverter. I did business with Eurotubes whom I found excellent to deal with: knowledgeable AND informative, fast delivery, and excellent prices.

Visually comparing the JJ's to the Chinese brand tubes, even *I* could see a big difference in quality. Where the Chinese tubes had steel rods, the JJ's had copper and were just beefier looking inside.

I cleaned the sockets, replaced the tubes and set the bias (which is amazingly simple to do; I don't know why the techs keep people so scared, but I guess that's just a form of marketing lol).

It took me an hour, but would be closer to 15 minutes next time. My chassis was over balanced and would not stand on end or edge, so I spent time leaning it, making sure nothing touched anything. I'm still not sure if it would have been safe to just let the transformer lean on something. ...And why they don't put the bias adjustment on the top side of the chassis in the first place, I do not understand. :p

Results: Definitely a smoother, warmer sound. I didn't really understand the term "brittle sound" before, but I do now that it is gone! :) Only a couple hours on the tubes yet, so the final tone is yet to be determined after they burn in some. Definitely worth doing as it cost me less than $100 for 7 tubes, the probe, and a muiltimeter (the leads for the probe would not fit mine).