It seems very rare anyone with a Sonett experimented all that much.
I think most of us bought it because we like the sound and all that, more than rolling lightbulbs in and out.
You're practically, Captain Lighbulb Roller.
Captain Lightbulb Roller? lol
For sure, since Donald designed the amp around the 6N30P, of course it sounds great with this tube. However, it is important to keep in mind that as a general rule, in order to make a profit, amplifier manufacturers have to design their amps around tubes that are plentiful and cheap in order to be able to sell amps with tubes at an affordable price, as well as to be able to procure and store enough spares for replacements. This is why so many manufactures use Chinese and Russian stock, as it is plentiful and cheap. Many quality American and European old-stock tubes are not cheap and plentiful, and thus are impractical for most manufacturers. However, some manufacturers have gotten around this problem by using quality old-stock tubes, cheap and plentiful, that no one else is using, such as the 6EW7 in the WA6SE.
So my thinking is that even though the Sonett was designed to use the 6N30P, it may well sound great with similar, but less common, old-stock tubes that were just too impractical for Donald to consider. A similar example is the Little Dot IV in that it was designed to use a pair of 6N30P as output tubes. In fact, the 6N30P-DR supertube is generally considered the holy grail in the Little Dot world. However, a number of folks have substituted 5687, and even 6SN7, and now prefer these tubes to their supertubes.
So it should be fun to try some different tubes and see how they perform in the Sonett.
