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Who makes the highest quality tube amps?

One scale of 1-10, 10 being best designed and constructed technically, personal sound preferences aside, who are the 8s, 9s, and 10s?

VAC, ARC, Atmasphere would seem like likely candidates I can think of. Are they ?

Where does Decware rank? Rogue? How about others?

SOme technical facts to help support any claims is appreciated please.

Durability and reliability matters to me here as much as anything. I would want my tube gear to continue to work as reliably as designed years down the road as well as up front.

THanks.

Thanks.
128x128mapman
xiekitchen
821 posts
 
Airtight, Jadis, Tube Research Labs, Nestorovic come to mind. I'd love to have a Jadis personally.
tpreaves's avatar
tpreaves
2,686 posts
 
02-08-13: Tpreaves

Who makes the highest quality tube gear?

I do, of course. It is the best in the universe.
syntax's avatar
syntax
2,193 posts
 
A lot of tube Designs are pretty simple, it is nearly impossible to build a bad sounding 300B amp for example...

OTL is really difficult to make it reliable. Or being gentle on tubes, or using cheap tubes, no matching necessary ...
When paired with the right speaker, hard to beat.

My vote here is for R. Karsten , Atmasphere
mapman's avatar
mapman OP
22,290 posts
 
Thanks for the supporting argument Syntax.

TP, I don't doubt your the best, but where's the beef? :-)
rlwainwright
1,904 posts
 
I think Butler needs to be on the list. 25 year tube life, inexepensive tubes, very well-built chassis and excellent input and output connectors. Oh yeah, you also never need to fiddle around with bias - truly setup and forget...

-RW0
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