^^ congrats bro, you got the PW fever that been nagging at me recently. Great compliment to the German tubes I like so much.
Hehe it's not all unicorns and rainbows, however, after some burn-in one of the weaker Red tubes became even weaker and now you can hear the hiss/crackle all the time. Measures significantly worse as well. I can still listen to it on speakers and HD800 as it's barely audible, but I also noticed that there some light manages to pass through the getter flashing so this tube is on the way out. Funny part is even though it's dying and testing low now and crackling and hissing - the sound is the same and is perfectly matched to the healthy PW.
Also I did some more comparison between the PW PCC88 and E88CC from same date/time period and the PCC88 is shorter! And while it sounds really great it's not as crisp as the E88CC.
I even tried mixmatching one pinched PCC88 that I have without a brother which tests almost exactly the same as the healthy E88CC in the amp - and it actually sounds quite good, but I noticed a loss of detail and especially bass pressure in the songs I like to listen to (distortion perhaps due to tube difference?).
Also popped in my LCD-2 rev.2 (pre-fazor) for a listening session against the HD800 with the E88CC PWs - funny fact is with these tubes both headphones are really similar
The soundstage of the LCD-2s opens up and highs become better, and the HD800 gets a lovely bottom end extension. So now I just don't need to plug in my LCD-2s at all, ever, I get all the bass I need in my HD800s with these tubes and everything else is just better on the HD800s.
P.S. Read all this with a grain of salt as I may still be hyped over the pinched goodness, but I will definitely still be on the lookout for PWs of both familes! However it seems most sales are in the US, which is sad for me due to customs fees and all that.
