ADDING TUBES TO HOME THEATER????

If it's for movies,,, I dont have an opinion, but for the music part of it, I have also been thinking about tubes for the two main channels..either in a preamp or amp. For music those two channels are (of course) primary and I think getting the best sound possible out of them, regardless of matching with the other channels, is of highest importance. So, music wise, it sounds like a good idea to me.

I use monoblock tube amps (VTL) for my two front channel and solid state (Anthem for rears and center & Bryston for sub) for the rest. Since all my speakers are matched (Snell), I find it works great . . . excellent 2-channel and seamless HT. I use an HT pass through on my pre (VTL).

On a budget I use 3 ASL Wave 8s for the front three channels ($119 each) and Adcoms for the other 4 in a 7.1 setup. My speakers are all Soliloquy and I like the results.

I have a Cary Rocket 88 for sale right now, and I would absolutely NOT recommend adding tubes to a HT system.

Why? For one tubes go bad after a certain amount of use and that use in amps is about 1/10th the time tubes tend to last in tube preamps.

But aside from this tube question, I have done a lot of experiementation in the past with different amplification driving rear channels. My conclusion is that it really does not matter A LOT as to what quality of amp one uses to drive rear channels. Rear channels are not recorded well at all (compared to say 2 channel recordings). A lot of the stuff that goes on in the rears is echo and background noise. I could safely say that I could not tell the difference between a 100wpc Sony amp driving my rears (a few years ago) and Monarchy SE100 deluxe monoblocks driving my rears.

Now if you had a precise HT setup in a large room... well that may be a different story. You might need serious power driving the rears (and I would not choose the Rocket 88, it is a darn fine 2 channel tube amp, but at 40wpc max it does not drive 90db speakers terribly loud well).

I run 7.0 channel sound now with a receiver driving all the channels except the L & R front channel (run through the two channel system). The sound is very good. About the only thing I would upgrade is center channel amplification. Center amplification does matter a lot, and this is an area that my system is lacking.

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OOPSE I just discovered I misread your post... You want to add a tube amp for your L/R channels. I would not recommend it due to the tubes burning out issue. I would go with something a bit more powerful and solid state. Lots of SS options out there, depnds on how much you want to spend.

KF

I went with tubes for the LR and I'm pretty happy with the results. The center and surrounds are solid state (and also VASTLY less expensive), although I may consider upgrading the center channel amplifier.

If you get into 5-ch music, you may decide this isn't the optimum setup - however, I have little 5-ch music and the vast majority if my time is spent with 1) 2-ch music, 2) stereo TV, and 3) 5-ch movies.