Or so it was billed to me. Not by Wallace Stevens but Bill O'Connell, our Eastern Electric friend. For in this first bunch of tubes sent me by he (okay, sent to me by him - but I was trying not to lose the poesy) lurked - Underdog. A sleeper tube he called it. Perhaps it cowered for years in the corners of shops while its bolder brethren were carried off anear and afar by tube-hunters all the while praying quietly "pass me by, pass me by". And that, my friends, is how I imagine you get to be a sleeper tube. You are free to believe as you will, naturally (or to disregard the matter entirely as unimportant) - this is the Internet. Anyahoo, stumbling sleepily out of the gloom and night of the Tungsol, I fumblingly slipped Underdog into the socket, all the while feeling a titillation known only to those who are about to know something few do - how the Sylvania 5814A sounds in the amplification socket of a Minimax. I immediately noted a perceptible slowing of the pace, not overwhelmingly so but enough to make the entire Naim audio forum a bit jittery, I'd say. I eventually decided that the tube wasn't so much slowing things down as it was taking its own sweet time to show you all it had on offer. To this end, it showed itself to have not quite the expressiveness of Goldfinger but a more even tonality allied to a solid and accurate bass, perhaps more tight and accurate that Square Better Wire or for that matter, any of the above suspects. It went on to major in vocal presence (beautiful) and projection of instruments individually and in concert. My notes further state that our sleeper is "Not dark, maybe a slower, slightly more well projected version of James Bond [square better wire], tho not quite as intimate and without that frisson of sultriness." How's that for splitting hairs? See, that's what Norah Jones'll do for ya. Let you split hairs without ruining good music. Works like a charm. In sum and seriousness, a great tube with terrific tonality and presence.