YMI5150?

Alright, I'm jumping in. New to the tube scene and this has been overwhelming...but very cool to read. I'm an engineer/tinkerer so I'm liable to get totally sucked in along with you guys.

I've got a TSL601 with unknown upgrades. I am an early VH tone chaser and get the whole tone in the hands thing.

I do believe that I can make some changes to my setup to get that clean yet crunchy sound that Ed, Warren, G Lynch, Angus all had back in the day. I'm beginning to search for a half stack to help out but am hoping that you can summarize all this testing into a few preamp tube winners. I started a thread on 601 upgrades and Marty had great input but I could use a little more direction (which brand 12Ax7 black plate?, what test results to look for, etc.). You mentioned some having more sensitivity to vibration and not being a good choice for a combo.

I'm also hearing that I should leave the power side of things alone until after these mods are done and re-evaluate. Concur?

I am like you Josh, I don't turn it up much past 2-3 very often. Hopefully there's a decent solution at lower volumes...

Any chance of putting together an executive summary for an ongoing tone chasing project? Like a progress report so-to-speak...

I'll post feedback once I get a few to try out.

Cheer and this is awesome. Keep it up!