I was tube rolling one night (in the dark) and accidentally subbed a 5814 (12AU7) into my amp's 12AX7 phase inverter slots. Looked just like a 5751 in the dark. It sounded different, but pretty nice! Very smooth. I didn't notice the error (besides the large difference in sound) until a few days later when I went to roll again. Actually, I ran that bad matchup for another week or so, since it was nice. But I felt dirty for doing so!
I'll bet that tube swap created a worse electrical mismatch than Shindo/Harbeth does. Especially since Harbeths are designed to run at low (well, what I'd consider very low) volumes, which eases a LOT of the burden on the amp's ability to deliver power into the load. We know what Shindo says on this...what does Harbeth say about the matchup?
Jerome...keep on enjoying your system!
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