Tubes at Best Buy. Yes, it's true.

I have got to hand it to Philips, two years ago we had a mini system from them on the shelf that had a ribbon tweeter. The system also had a seperate amp, preamp/tuner and cd player that were stacked similiar to a hi-fi system.

I saw that same thing at "The Sharper Image"
I was reclining in the massage chair and my eye happened to catch the word "tube" on the box...i had to stop the massage (it was a good one) to ask the sales guy, hey are those vacuum tubes in there? He was all wild-eyed and had no idea what I just said...i had to explain...and sure enough he took me over to the display unit and bam there were what appeard to be small signal tubes in the front, behind some cheesy clear plastic....they even used the word 'audiophile' on the box description...maybe we have a chance yet in the market...c'mon hi rez downloads!!

Has anyone ever taken one of these apart.??

Considering we are talking about a mass production item, I wonder if the player is actually solid state and the tube is only lit (like a light bulb) separately, and is not part of the music circuit.

In others words, the tube could be cosmetic just to make it look cool(??)
(Especially the Sharper Image One.)