Murray, your right, I have no idea what I'm looking at there. It looks like the innards of that pesky K9 that keeps being mentioned. I only have limited exposure to valves so my generalisations were a bit tounge in cheek. I heard a warm, gushing, live sounding, hissy DIY valve once, plus I owned a BAT vk3ix too. That was accurate, clinical but still bloody noisey and hissy. Made my ultra clean hifi spinning ninja tunes sound like a battered old LP12. The amp was brand new and was check over by the dealer too. Pah, valves and me didn't mix afterall. Too many compromises