Lush and Romantic Tube Amps

Russbutton, agreed you can save a good chunk of money building the VTA amps yourself....and definitely learn a lot about tube amps in the process.

Rodman and papafrog, for me tube rolling has been the best part of owning a tube amp. I've tried and own 6 or 7 rectifier tubes, and several versions of output tubes until I settled on my current pairing. Unfortunately I have WAY too many signal tubes as I got obsessed with 12AU7 style tubes. I think I have 40 or 50 pairs of tubes, and have rolled half of them through my amp......the subtle (or not subtle) changes are a blast to fine tune a tube amps sound. What I learned along the way is that NOS rectifier and driver tubes are vastly superior to current production versions.

@papafrgog ​​​& @vthokie83-

      While I totally agree with your assessments, regarding rolling amp valves; I'll bet the OP could save a passel of $$ (not to mention: possible sensitivity/efficiency matching headaches), were he to roll some warmer ones into his LTA preamp.

       Especially: if he's satisfied with the SPLs and performance of his existing amp and speaker combo, aside from that longing for a cozier presentation.

                                          Happy listening!

What I learned along the way is that NOS rectifier and driver tubes are vastly superior to current production versions.

                                                  Fact!

Like some have suggested, I highly suspect that the warm sound the OP is looking for is only available in lower powered tube amps.  This will require an efficient speaker.

In addition to my 89db neutral speaker running on a 300wpc neutral ss amp, I have a 100db speaker dedicated to flea watt tube amps starting with the 300b.  Bummer it’s not efficient enough for 45 2wpc tube SET amps some say sounds like the best SET tube - I’ll need a much larger speaker (which won’t fit my rooms) to increase efficiency.

Surprisingly, the setups I've heard so far that could be described as lush, warm, and romantic utilized SS amps. One used a Vitus integrated and another an Esoteric Class A power amp. 

My experience with higher powered tube amps is that they give highly realistic sound with plenty of excitement. I am using one, a Lab12 Integre 4 MKII and I definitely won't describe it as warm and romantic.