TUBE BIAS, socket to me!

Is it really worth all this fuss? Can't you find a solid state amp that sounds as good or better, or are tubes less expensive for a given sound quality?

Don't shoot me - I am a vinyl guy, so certainly willing to go through some inconvenience for top SQ, but ever since I was in a room with tubes that got so hot a fan had to be installed (ruining the sound of the stereo), I never considered them.

I like to think I am open minded. Convince me why I should change my Plinius 8200MKII integrated amp to a tube one.

Sokogear, It's a personal decision based on your own listening to music. One cannot say for sure exactly which tube amplifier you might prefer to your Plinius SS one.  There are many types of tube amplifier, just as there are a few different standard topologies for SS.  You would have to put in the work yourself.  But since you have already stated your bias for SS, it might not be fruitful.  It's not anyone else's job to convince you of anything.

Thanks Lewm. I am hoping to hear from people who have tried or use both and their reasons for choosing tubes over SS. There was a similar discussion on analogue vs. digital and it was interesting to hear both sides opinions.

sokogear

Tubes can be a lot of fuss, IF you are a very fussy person, which I am not. Therefore, for 43 years they have been easy, and I have heard and prefer tubes over SS. Easy.

As I mentioned in the original post, I simply spray the controls, swish em around put em in the middle, listen. Never bothered with bias.

Make it easier on yourself. To avoid a lot of unknows, I bought, and advise buying a simple tube tester, which you might think fussy, but I like knowing rather than guessing the condition of existing and newly purchased tubes. I always do an annual pre-holiday tube check prior to Thanksgiving. Over the years, a few developed shorts, a few have died, a few have gotten weak. Easy to find and replace with a simple tester.

Over the years I have gotten away with original or substitute tubes 'of the same performance', probably why I have gotten away with plug and play.

This time, I changed types, 6550's to KT88's. It is recommended to change the bias when you change those in my amp.

I didn't bother, the difference is easy to hear, I prefer the KT88's.

Sooo, I asked: how important is bias really? If they sounded better, might they sound even better?

If I was buying a tube amp, I would prefer external bias, safer than needing to go inside mine, yet I am limited in choice by wanting 16 ohm taps on the transformer.

Elliot, I see no reason why you should be surprised that there are no products currently for sale that mimic your Macintosh MX 110, with an FM tuner built into a preamplifier essentially. FM radio is on the rocks. Not many audiophiles even try listening to FM radio for musical pleasure these days. Except maybe in their cars. Back in the heyday of the MX110, every major city had FM stations that actually competed with each other for the quality of their signal and prided themselves on their classical and jazz music content. That’s all gone, pretty much. So that accounts for the absence of a built-in tuner. As for the tone controls, those fell out of fashion in the 90s, except for some notable made in Japan preamplifiers from Accuphase and Luxman. Privately, I think they fell out of fashion because not incorporating tone controls saves a bit of cost on build and development. Audiophile publications often carried articles suggesting that tone controls add distortion, which of course they do. But it’s a question of trade-offs. As far as I am concerned, I would not consider a preamplifier with tone controls, unless they were switchable in and out of the circuit. Apparently you do enjoy FM radio broadcasts, in which case the MX 110 was made for your needs. It’s great that you like it so much. Now I think of it, Accuphase and maybe Luxman too may have made preamplifiers with built in tuners of more recent vintage than that of your Macintosh. Those would be all solid state, most likely.  Very  high quality.