Old Amp vs. New Amp

orpheus10...  What amp did you buy from Parts Express?  I had a little Dayton amp that I used for desktop speakers.  It did pretty good until it got fried.  Now I'm using a NAD 3020 for my desktop speakers.  I'm very happy with that.

I've considered the PrimaLuna stuff.  When I do get some tubes, I will certainly look into those (as well as Rogue, BAT, VTL and MAC).

Not sure where "high repair costs" of older tubed gear are coming from. Point to point wired tubed gear is pretty easy for a competent tech to repair, to me its one of the bonuses of running tubes. My amp is 17 years old, I've owned it for 10, in that time I've recapped it for $500 and replaced a burned out resistors I think twice both times less than $100 for the repair. Other than retubing the overall cost of ownership has been modest in my experience. But again I am talking about a simple Class A , PP,  triode and point to point wired tubed amp, no fancy circuits here.

Jond, what you say is true "most" of the time. My pre-amp needs a transformer; that's something that never goes out on most gear.

Petrela, I bought two of those and a drop of water can fry one of those because the top is used for ventilation, and a drop of water caused one of mine to fry.

The other one is combined with the PV-10A, and it sounds good; primarily because SS mates good with CJ tube.

Since I have "all" high end in the listening room, if any of it goes bad and I can't fix it; I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I can't say enough good things about PrimaLuna, and I highly recommend it.

I think "newbees" should only buy "new" equipment they can afford. It takes experience to even know what's wrong; why start out taking that chance? Parasound use to be an affordable name that offered good gear. Just because I can no longer afford all those names that represent the "high end" doesn't mean you can't; but after all is said and done, used has more of a downside if you are not at least a "Half A--" technician.