For anyone who moved from tubes to solid state — a question

Hello invalid, My experiences with Tube Research Labs (TRL) date back quite a few years starting with the “Dude” preamp and a pair of GT200 monos which I still use today. I have also owned the Stereo 100 . I have fellow TRL owners that have been friends / listening buddies for as many years and they each own the GT 400’s.   Originally equipped with KT88’s all the TRL’s are flexible with output tubes as they were essentially “overbuilt” by design (and literally their construction as well) such that the KT150 or KT120 are the current ‘go to’ tubes for each of us. The 150’s ( my choice) add about a 50% increase in output power over the ‘88’s and the KT120’s not quite that but still noticeably above the 88’s.    I am also an “Apogee guy” and the vast majority of my own system has revolved around either [rebuilt] Divas or Duettas. My friends have run their 400’s into plenty over the years as well including a variety of Sound Labs including A1’s, A3’s, Ultimate 1’s and 2’s, Focal Grand Utopia BE’s, Nova  “” “”” as well as Martin Logan CLX’s and more. 
  As for the 800’s... that’s a whole other story. I’ve never heard them but my friends have. Incredible. 

There is a guy on another forum that biamps with the 400's and the 800's into a pair of apogee full range.

That sounds like a truly dream system.

Looking closer at those TRL 200,400,800 amps, now I think I better understand what was meant earlier around "maintenance", and  "event" when firing them up.  Wow, that's some array of output tubes... 

Certainly makes for a case of owning a backup SS amp for non-critical listening times or non-winter months :) 

The best tube amps from Audio Research require an A/C system for the listening room.  Tubes are finicky.  If you want to hear great musical reproduction, all of the time, stick to really good trannys.