Anyone else evolve beyond tubes?

Michael Elliot of Counterpoint talked extensively about tubes in my owners manual and refered to them as fragile little devices. Here is part of what he had to say on the subject:

"A tubes insides are far more fragile than the insides of a light bulb. In a light bulb, all the mfg has to worry about is long life and good light output. It doesn't matter if the filament wire is leaning to one side or if the coating of the filament has some loose flackes, the bulb will work. But a tube has about 1,000 times the requirements to operate satisfactorily. Everybody knows that if you shake a light bulb briskly for about 10 minutes there is a good chance the filament might break, making the bulb useless. The same concept applies to a tube used for audio, but to a larger extent".

Further he explains that the shipping process of tubes due to vibration cannot guarantee a perfectly working noiseless tube upon receipt. So far I have been fortunate and have yet to receive tubes that are noisey or don't work at all but that could change!

TVAD, I totally agree with your statement above and makes alot of sense, very good point. By the way, I am already working on wearing them tubes out you sold me! They have proven to be exceptional in their sonic performance and at times hate to even shut the system down, it sounds that good, you really know your tubes!

Well said Audiofeil...........

50% tube failure rate, I don't think so. I have been using tubes, like so many of they above posters, for well over 20 years, even when they were not in vogue, without any type of tube failures. I did have a Cary 2A3 SET amp that ate tubes for lunch but found out after the amp ate two tubes within a month the bias circuit in one of the amps had gone south and I was over biasing the tubes. Again like so many of the above, I too have had examples from ARC, cj, Music Reference, Cary, Welborne, Art Audio, Sophia, Atma-Sphere and Manley (who drive their tubes to the limit) and with the only exception of the one Cary 2A3 amp I have yet to have a tube failure. Atma-Sphere uses a 6AS7 power tube which can be problematic, two years using the same tubes that came in the amps they are running just fine, hot, but just fine. After learning of the 6AS7 tube having potential problems I even stocked up thinking I was going to need extra tubes at some point, not the case. If one is running away from tube amps because of the risk of tube failures one needs to look for another reason, better base, more dynamics, less user interaction with the amp maybe, but not tube failures.......

Here's an interesting thread about some views on the current crop of Chinese tubes:

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/tubes/messages/184779.html