tube vs SS preamp

Tube preamp and SS amp is one way to go about it..

I have not yet done tube amps... if a tube fails - does the speaker generally go with it as well?

I have never never witnessed, either personally or among the many friends with tube gear, a failure of tube gear that lead to damage of a speaker. Most tube failures end in distortion or no sound from the speaker. In a post above, someone mentioned problems with DC being sent to the speaker; this is impossible with most tube gear because an output transformer CANNOT output DC--DC in the primary would mean no output from the secondary because a fluctuating magnetic field (not DC) is required to induce a current in the secondary. The only possible DC from a tube amp would involve an OTL that does not employ a protection circuit or a blocking capacitor, and I have been told that that failure mode does not happen much either. I suppose that ANY high powered amp, tube or solid state, has the potential to do damage from a failure or operator error causing high level noise to be passed into the speaker.

On the other hand, I have been witness to a few solid state "failures" that did do in speaker drivers. Most often this was caused by operator error (e.g., accidentally pulling an interconnect from a source component causing a LOUD pop). I have also witnessed damage from just plain old abuse of playing at excessive volume--much more common with solid state gear because high power from solid state is "cheaper" and more common.

Owning tube gear might mean a bit more effort is required to maintain top working order--testing and replacing tubes, cleaning tube sockets--but, damage to speakers IS NOT one of those concerns. I would be MUCH more nervous if I owned high-powered solid state gear because of either failure or other conditions that can cause very loud noise, such as power outages/fluctuations (I've heard near heart stopping thumps from solid state gear when power flickered off and on because of crappy service in my area).

Hi Milpay, "I have NEVER been in the tubeland" - that's where I was also, some years ago, but things have changed. To my ears tubed gear often sounds better. Now I have a pure tube chain. I am trying out a kind of hybrid preamp, a tube preamp with solid-state power supplies, the Einstein The Tube mk2. I found it used for a good price. It matches my Atma MA-1 OTL tube monoblocs well, and might be very good also in your context (see forum thread 1397501648). It seems very hassle-free, so far. You can roll just 3 tubes to get the sound you want for your favorite input.

I've had an output tube fail in a guitar amp (around 1967) with zero damage, and have also had a SS amp destroy a pile of speakers in a large keyboard rig because the preamp was turned off before the amp (back when we used too much stuff on stage). I have also had a Philips JAN 12AT7 fail in my Jolida with no damage (I saw it failing so I could turn the amp off) to anything, and "thetubestore" replaced both 12AT7s under warranty. I now run NOS Mullards in the AT7 spots.