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tubes in amps are designed to distort. distortion characteristics vary considerably. tubes in (good) tube gear are designed not to distort. in the 'linear' region, they should not vary so much. so they should be a lot more subtle.
though i think i finally figured out what that tube in my pro vla is for... seemed kind of a 'gimmick' to have a tube after the vactrol stage. But i think it's protection - the opto is kind of slow, so by hitting the tube, you can take advantage of the tube's natural squashing abilities (e.g. tube overdrive) to get a decent-sounding flattening of the transient, and then let the opto take care of the 'regular' compression...
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