Living With A Class A Tube Amp

I have one of his AMPs (KT-88) driving Sonus Faber Guarneri Evolution Loudspeakers. Like you I had a PL (HP) amp. The Rogers is a terrific upgrade. (Pls see my system page). You not only will get a great AMP but if needed Roger is there. Rarely is the volume past 9 oclock on the dial. I’m N Cal if you are here too. 

Heat rises so as long as what’s above AMP is clear yr. good. A heavy table should be Aok

My tube set is 4-5 years old.  The few other Rogers owners I have had contact with are all happy campers. Dig daddyoh?

PS There’s an 88 on ebay. EBay takes 13% that a phone call will save you that and maybe more. 

Here’s one on Agone

@jrcotner 

1. Class A tube amps have desirable sonic qualities, but other current tube or solid state amps can produce equally good sound quality without the drawbacks listed above.

That came from @atmasphere and while I agree with the majority of his posts, and learn a lot from him, the point above is too subjective. I've heard him comparing the latest Class D amps to tubes and using the 'equally good sound quality' comment. I've yet to have that experience. (But I also haven't heard Atmasphere's own Class D amps.)

There's a couple ways that good tubes present themselves that I haven't heard from solid state/Class D. 

Amplifiers employing tubes often present a larger, deeper sound stage that some term ‘halographic.’ Tubes also have a distinctive distortion signature that I notice most with guitar treble. Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan solos sound like they’re playing different instruments when reproduced with transistor vs. tube amps. The transistors result in clearer, cleaner sounds; but the tubes sound like what I remember from the 70’s (in Jimi’s case). That reverberating, echoey sound can’t be reproduced by transistors, in my experience. 
 

I have both tube (Rogue Audio Stereo 100 Dark) and transistor (McIntosh MC252) amps fed by tip-of-the-line preamps of their respective lines. I find them to perform equally well, but they are not identical. Currently, I find myself leaning more toward the sound of the tubes, but it is so close; at least with the different speakers, each system seems offer its own unique contribution and I frequently run them both at the same time. 
 

Note: my response was prompted by @rooze ’s contribution, I didn’t intend to cop the thread at all. 

You most likely have either ultralinear or pentode

pentode being a purer circuit without all the feedback as in a Ultralinear circuit.

I always thought that ultralinear was synonymous with pentode, and that triode was the purer circuit. Was I mistaken?