Buying Tubes Again; Maddening

selecting a tube is a nuisance, because there is no substitute for listening to the tube. all of the suggestions will not help until you hear the affect of the tube.

stanwal:

what ss amp are you using and why ?

did you select your amp because it's interaction with your speakers provided a sound which was close to the performance of some tube amp? or did the speaker perform very differently after you inserted the ss amp ?

I got my first SS amp in 1963 and never went back; I don't want it to sound like tubes but like music. The tube amps I used were mainly Dynaco but I have occasionaly tried out others over the years and have heard quite a few on others systems. My CJ 350 or Meridian 605s have excellent bass, good but not bright highs and a transparent midrange. I usually find tube pre amps too bright and lacking in bass and detail; I have not heard the AR Ref series or top CJ pre amps and they are out of my price range anyway. But I recently compared my MF Kw line stage to a $6k tube one and the consensus was that it was better. My Spendors could be driven by tubes but my Gamut would be difficult for all but the biggest tube amps and they take a lot of power and go below 3 ohms. I simply like the sound of SS better but have no problem with anyone who likes tubes better; apparently some took my humor seriously. I do have a problem with some designers; they do fail to respect the tube as mentioned above in that they use it outside the range in which it will have a normal life span. I don't care how good it sounds, if it is not reliable or requires constant retubing then it is not a good design. It is like a car that can go 0 to 60 in three seconds but will not go over 500 miles without breaking down.

Most of the NOS tubes i see on Audiogon are used up BIG TIME.Let the buyer beware!!A tube thats new should test at 100 to 115 not 75 thats garbadge.

The number of new tubes being manufactured today is way up from where it was 20 years ago. If we only buy NOS tubes, the prices will increase exponentially as the supply disappears. If we try and buy the best of the newer manufacture tubes we will provide an incentive for manufacturers to keep improving their products and we will have a source of high quality tubes for as long as we're a market to be served.