Jamie is making some very salient comments here. There are current production and readily available tubes that very good sounding tubes and they don't cost a lot. And a lot of judgments seem to be made based upon a single sample - not particularly scientific.
When I started in this business in the 90s one could buy a Fisher 400 for $75 at a swap meet, pull the Telefunken 12AU7s and run them in a Foreplay. Extra ones I could sell for maybe $15 a piece. Now a good Telefunken 12AU7 costs more than a Foreplay did. And of course the Fisher goes for what, $1000 restored? I get it - I'm old, that was a long time ago, they are supposedly more rare now and everyone wants to make money on their investment (Doc says buy CDs and CD players).
Because I got into this when Teles were $25 and 5998s were $15 I do have those tubes around, along with Tele E88CCs and EF806s for my Eros, Amperex 845s in my Neothoriator, etc. And I run them. I even have a mesh plate 10, a Pliotron, stuff that actually is quite rare and exotic.
However the difference between these tubes and something bang for the buck like a clear top 12AU7 or a Russian 6H32p or a Chinese 845 is not actually something of mythical proportions. If you have the budget and want to try $300 tubes in your $300 amp, go for it. And burn those bitches up. They sound nice and were meant to be used! But if you don't have the budget, don't feel like you're missing something critical to improving your karma or advancing the entire species. Yes, they are nice but probably not as much an improvement as the same money spent on carefully employed room treatment or a better sounding source component than what you currently have.