Don't sell your tube amps

Had differnet ss amps (Burmester 956 mk2, Krell Evo 302 among others), hybrid too (Pathos Inpo 2) than bought amp/premp, single ended in A class, just to try the all tube system. Nos tubes, better caps, new Tkd potentiometar made significant sound upgrades (together with carefull and rather ’top’ choice of cables everywhere) of rather inexpensive combo (some 6k eur new). Of course, have a very good digital source (Burmester 089) The sound I got from it was perhaps the best I’ve ever had, but everytime I put some other tubes than Nos, the sound would change enough that I did not enjoy it as much. So, that left me worried for a time that I would not have any more chosen tubes to get. At first I thought to get even better tube combo, but I wondered if I would face the same ’problem’, not to mention the price and availability of tube these (and future) days. So, I changed the tube combo for Burmester power amp again (the ss whose house sound I prefer the most). Will buy their preamp as well, aldo I will try some tube ones as well. Bottom line, for me the tubes have something ’more’ that even the very good ss cant match entirely, or perhaps it can, but with costly gear. The plus side is, I guess, ss allows you wider choice of speakers and more hours of listening (with ss I sometimes put music even if I have just a half our of time to listen, something that I never did with tubes) Also, the heat of tubes in A class was enough to prevent me from listening music thru most of summer days. But, in a ’perfect scenario’ I would choose tubes every time. Pity that world goes in other direction. Never tried D class amps, very curious about ones from Atmasphere

Obviously there are many solid state amps that do a great job as Atmasphere pointed out, and many (including my Pass XA-25) are "tube like" in their design and some are Class A room heaters. One thing often left out of these conversations is the fact that no SS amp allows you to easily swap out transistors based on your listening mood. In my tube Had amp (and in my guitar amps) I swap in 6V6s, KT88s, 77s, 120s, 150s, 6550s, etc. including various brands of those (all sounding a little different) and various smaller preamp input tubes and rectifiers. Why? It's FUN. And, as has been mentioned previously, they look and can sound astonishingly beautiful, although maybe fooling me into having fun by providing a bit of some sort of pleasant and harmonically appropriate distortion...again tricking me into thinking I'm really enjoying the music. Sad but true. Tubes can simply sound great, last a long time, and provide some listener interaction with their ease of replacement. What's wrong with that?

Biggest mistake I ever made in audio was selling an MC240 to buy a big Home Theater receiver. A Yamaha. Now, I'm 4 x 2k+ each AVRs later, and that MC240 is selling for 5X what I sold it for. And nothing has sounded so good.

Tubes will be around for a while longer...there are too many enthusiasts out there in the hi fi world to call for the demise of tubes in the near future.....BUT....Class D is coming like a freight train.....Atmasphere in the lower price points and Aavik in the higher end are both on the fore front of making beautiful , magical music. ..the tubey sound we all love without the drawbacks associated with the tubes themselves.

@mbmi 

Class D is coming like a freight train.....Atmasphere in the lower price points and Aavik in the higher end are both on the fore front of making beautiful , magical music. ..the tubey sound we all love without the drawbacks associated with the tubes themselves.m

Maybe or maybe not . Time and the marketplace will decide. If new generation class D causes people to dump their tube amplifiers by the boatload, so be it. One consistent characteristic of high end audio is that new and different is always better. Things do evolve over time. However, not always superior outcomes by default. We all shall see.

Charles