Actually I must admit I'm a bit of a snob myself. I just dropped two grand on a Bogner Uberschall, which in itself is a snob-ish piece of a equipment. Then I proceded to re-tube it with Telefunkens and Mullards. To be honest it hardly made a difference in sound but it does make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to know that I got the best of the best in the amp. Nevertheless I don't pass up a good thing when I see one. I ordered the Affinity as a spare pre in addition to my Manley, which I thought was going to be my main pre. Well... after using both I just prefered HCL. Not that the Manley isn't good, it's awesome and sounds great, but the Affinity does it better for me.
Funny you should mention NOS tubes. I have actually just bought some NOS tubes for the Affinity (waiting for them to arrive). Well, one of the Soviet tubes doesn't have a correct equivalent, so I'm gonna leave that one alone. But I will try GE 5670's and possibly Western Electric 396A's (396A's are a better equivalent than the 5670's but I'm gonna try both). Not that there's anything wrong with the original tubes but I just wanna see if the NOS would make a difference.
P.S. Disclamer: The following is a long rant and has no relevance to HCL but I just wanted to address the whole snob vs. reality thing with another example. When it comes to guitars I definitely qualify as a snob. If the guitar isn't made in the US and costs less than two grand I usually simply dismiss it as something not worth wasting 20 minutes on. Last year I found myself in Japan. I have heard of Japanese Les Paul knock offs branded Edwards and was curious to check them out. I was really skeptical about guitars that were copied after Gibsons (which I despise, by the way) and were 4 times cheaper. Well, what do ya know? I ended up buying two Edwards! And I would have bought more if I had more hands to take the guitars on the plane. Now, I have quite a few guitars, and most of those are boutique US-made instruments of the highest quality (way better than Gibson for sure) but these Edwards for the fraction of the price play and sound just as well! Sure, the finish isn't as great and they don't come with a fancy hard shell case... But all the essentials - the wood selection, the long neck tennon construction, the electronics - are all top quality. And that's what contributes to the sound and the playability. I did replace the hardware with the TonePros (another $100 investment), which took these Edwards to a completely new level. The Edwards get the most playtime right now. And not because I try to spare my high-end expensive axes (I really don't) but because I like the way they play and sound. The moral: there is nothing wrong with being a snob but keeping an open mind might yield some amazing finds!
