Classic McIntosh tube amp or new other brand

There are a pair of Quicksilver Silver Sixties for sale on Audiogon at a great price. I have a pair that I use to drive Gallo 3.1's and they sound wonderful. If you are interested the Mid-Monos I would urge you to consider the Silver Sixties. IMHO they are the better amps. They are well built and should last a long time. They are also very nice looking amps that have all of their connections on the rear (as it should be) instead of on the sides.

Classic tube gear in theory should give you better resale value, but usually comes with issues. For instance, unless it has been played regularly, your classic MC30 or MC240 will probably require new power supply capacitors. And then you get into a thorny issue about whether to stay "pure" and replace only with original parts (to retain its value) or to use superior modern alternatives. No guarantee either that the expensive NOS caps you buy to replace the originals will even be still good after all these years, so you might have to do it all over again.

And then there are the notorious "bumblebee" coupling capacitors. Notorious because they tend to leak DC, which screws up your output tube bias. If you keep NOS tubes, there's nothing like looking up to see the output plates glowing cherry red b/c a coupling cap is leaking. BTDT.

Now Mac gear is damn reliable, and will continue to sound OK for a long time, even when everything isn't working as well as it could. But materials science has come a long way, and things like RCA jacks, and speaker terminations are far better on today's amps than they were back in the day.

I spend a lot of my free time fussing around with classic tube gear, but I am not a purist, and I don't make an effort to maintain resale value. If resale is important to you, I think you may find modern gear easier to live with. I happen to think Quicksilver gear is fantastic (had a set of V4's I still regret selling). Unless you're a wiz with a soldering iron, I'd recommend you stick with today's gear.

If you are willing to mod classic gear, you can end up with nice sounding stuff. Putting motor run oil caps in the power supply, adding modern coupling caps, and tube rolling to get a great sound... lots of fun. But it screws your resale value. There are always exceptions. For instance, the HK Citation-II amps have fantastic iron in them, and Jim McShane sells well-regarded mod kits that actually enhance resale value. But Mac and Marantz buyers, especially those in the far east who have kept the prices up, really value authenticity. So you're better off not fussing with them.

Just my $.02

Another Brand. I like the quickies I have heard but especially like Cary tube gear. The Mac 240 will cost you a pretty penny. Then refurbing it to grand hieghts may (will) cost a lot mote. The return on that is not a net profit. I lose money on every deal .
I just don't look to this hobby for investment.
I got a pair of HH Scott, S1-SH11, "impedance control" speakers for free froM a guy at a second hand shop. I buy half broken TTs there.
I expected a blurry, dull, uninspiring sound for use in training for "the dumpster speaker put", a new olympic sport. I chose an album that I love. I mean it- damn if they didn't sound good . I don't know..... for sure they weren't masterpieces.... but they made me quite happy that's good enough. Makes me wonder about the money we all have poored into this chase for perfection

Vintege Macs will hold up it's value over time. From time to time you can find Mc-240 or Mc-30 amps from EBax that already been gone over by techs, a good sign of it is some new caps in the power supply side.
I currently own 2 Mc-240 driving some old EV 12trxb's in the Aristocrat cabinets and it sounds great.