Ah I see... You mean La Radiotechnique - or are you referring to the VT-229s I bought before?

I'll always use quality NOS tubes in my amps, as the best of them sonically piss all over the current production variety, so much so that it's not funny! Good ones also last much longer.

Also, if possible I'll always choose military spec 1950s vintage ECC83/12AX7s and 1940s vintage 6SL/6SN7s, as the earliest varieties of a particular tube invariably sound best. By the 1970s, solid-state devices started to dominate, thus demand for tubes fell, and with it so did quality.

Marco.