"Ultimate Tube Gain Machine?" - I wonder..........

[frequencycentral]

.....

[Jana]

The reason for the successively lower voltage as you progress from the last stage to the first is not so much a plan to allow more headroom for the later stages, but is a result of filtering. Yes, it may indeed allow more headroom, but the primary reason is that each section of the power supply, with its dropping resistor and filter cap, filters the supply so that the first stage has the cleanest and most hum free voltage. Any hum introduced in the first stage is going going to be amplified by all the rest.

[Firestorm]

The reason for the successively lower voltage as you progress from the last stage to the first is not so much a plan to allow more headroom for the later stages, but is a result of filtering. Yes, it may indeed allow more headroom, but the primary reason is that each section of the power supply, with its dropping resistor and filter cap, filters the supply so that the first stage has the cleanest and most hum free voltage. Any hum introduced in the first stage is going going to be amplified by all the rest.

Yep. But if you want to fool around with headroom and stage-to-stage driving voltages, you can manipulate the plate and cathode resistors (to a point). You can also shift impedances by paralleling both halves of a twin triode or by running a cathode follower. All noble pursuits.

[Ears]

I see no point.
A single gain stage of 12ax7 etc can provide more than ample voltage gain to overdrive a following stage.