What do you see as the downside of tubes?

Well, the more often I come back here the more I known that I'l stick with my original decision to get the 300B amp.

Tinkering with things I do like and biasing the tubes and keeping a log (thanks Rleff, I like that idea) is a good idea to keep track of things.

The speakers I have I did buy knowing they'd be a better match for a tube amp than other speakers (I shall not say good match as surely someone would say there are much better ones) and so I better get that tubeamp and find out about the "magic".

And now as I have a day off I shall go fishing :)

Most amps have safety measures in place if a tube goes bad (or is bad right out of the gate). I bought a Rogue Tempest II integrated back in February and apparently UPS dropped it while it was being shipped. Among other damage, one of the tubes was bad (Rogue tests everything before shipment). When I plugged the tube in after receiving the amp, I found out it was a "runaway" as the bias on the tube pinned the needle all the way to the right and the tube popped the corresponding fuse. So a popped fuse, a little bit of smoke, some cussing and that was it. No damage to the speakers, no damage to the amp (other than what UPS had done to it already, unfortunatley).

Rogue took the Tempest II back and instead I went with a Stereo 90 that they custom modded for me (which took another month of waiting to receive), but aside from the waiting I couldn't be happier.

Tube amps are not exactly hassle free, but they're typically not a pain in the #ss either, unless you end up with a bad apple (and what manufacturer doesn't have a dud every once in a while?).

Mapman-Lafayette Radio there's a store from the past;we had several in Buffalo,NY and I always like checking out their equipment.
Krauti- Glad you liked my bias log;helped me a lot;I never had a tube blast out a speaker driver when it failed and I believe 100% with Ralph from Atmasphere that design is key.
I am not familiar with the output tube you are asking about but there sure are lots of feedback on the thread you started.

another consideration is not finding the tubes to optimize the sound of your stereo system , when using the tube amp. there is no way to predict in advance what affect a tube will have on the sound of a stereo system. this can be frustrating, especially if you are dissatisfied with the sound of your stereo system.

And late at night I'm back to check on this thread :) Mrtennis, you have a point there. As tube amps allow us to roll the tubes and try different things it is hard to optimize the system as there is quite a choice of tubes out there.

The other side to that argument is that with SS amps I don't have have the freedom of simply purchasing a set of tubes to change something. I actually have to roll the amps so to speak to achieve the same result. Needless to say, some tubes will cost me the same as an amp and that need to be taken into consideration.

As this thread has been going on for a bit now I'm glad to say that my decision to go with tubes and namely the Mastersound 300B intergrated is unchanged.

Thanks for all the great input and I mean all of it. Yes, most everything can be measured, but at the end of the day it comes down to what we perceive as good sound.

I personally don't believe that one needs to spend $10000 to get a good tube amp. In fact I listened to the Mastersound Due Venti again today and the smile on my face was big. The price tag was way below above mentioned number and yet I smiled.

Bummer, maybe I have a problem by not being able to hear the $7000 difference. But hey, the good part is that I can buy a hearing aid to help me and have money left over for a better amp. Hmmmm, if only I had that $10000 :(

Thanks folks for making this a great thread, well, at least to me it was, or should I say is as I'm still right in it.