Stellar, you just aren't with it. There is a consensus among psychics that good sounding B+ is essential to audio nirvana. Engineers are just heathens anyway.

As a audio customer said years ago....
"You people just make the gear! It takes us to make it sound good!"
My reply was, "Why not design your own gear and you won't need us anymore!"
I got a really dumb look!:D

Just my two cents worth and for the sake of the original topic I greatly prefer all "ST" envelope tubes. There is simply something about the look that attracts me. Maybe it's the feminine curves! LOL! Or maybe in the rectifier case it's that superior sound that is produced. GEEEZ! Oh well, I guess not every one of us really knows what is going on in electronic circuitry. I don't claim to know it all and really wish I knew more, but I do know that rectifiers play ALMOST no role in sound quality. I can say "almost" as if there is no rectification then there is no sound.

Anyway, I am always saddened when one of my old radios or TVs loses an "ST" type of vacuum tube and I must replace it with a plain Jane glass or metal tube. The cream of my radio crop is a working yet unrestored Silvertone model 4663 table top. Most of the tubes are factory Silvertone and the metal shields are form fitted to the "ST" design. To keep the originals I pulled them and use newer tubes so I can always put the probably unobtanium green and white paper labeled Silvertones back in. One actually went bad in all these years since the 30s, but I even hang on to that one for the look if needed as I have seen the radio called the "holy grail of radios" on the Web somewhere. Maybe, maybe not holy grail, but truly a survivor that works as well as the day it rolled off of the assembly line; paper caps and all!! :D