I can't point you to a primer on tubes. A good way to start learning would be to read reviews of tube amps, preamps and integrateds, and do searches here and at Audio Asylum for topics of interest.
Tubes require a little more attention than solid state but the amount varies from very little to a lot.
IMHO, a good choice for your first tube component is a PrimaLuna Prologue II or Dialogue II integrated amp.
These integrateds are very well built and have many great reviews.
In the preamp section they use 12AX7 and 12AU7 tubes. These are among the most common small signal tubes and there is a great variety of them that you can "roll" (change) to tune the sound of your integrated.
For the power tube section they have adaptive autobias. Biasing tubes is probably the hardest aspect of tubes for a newcomer to get comfortable with.
PrimaLuna does it for you continuously so you never have to bias, you don't need matched tubes and the tubes are run in their sweet spot so they last longer. In a pinch you can even run different tube types (KT88s with KT66s for instance).
Also the PrimaLunas are built so that they can use a variety of power tubes. You can read about this in the reviews.
So that's why I think the PrimaLunas are a good place to start. Reselling shouldn't be a problem if you find you don't like the PrimaLunas or tubes in general.
Good Luck and have fun!
Tubes require a little more attention than solid state but the amount varies from very little to a lot.
IMHO, a good choice for your first tube component is a PrimaLuna Prologue II or Dialogue II integrated amp.
These integrateds are very well built and have many great reviews.
In the preamp section they use 12AX7 and 12AU7 tubes. These are among the most common small signal tubes and there is a great variety of them that you can "roll" (change) to tune the sound of your integrated.
For the power tube section they have adaptive autobias. Biasing tubes is probably the hardest aspect of tubes for a newcomer to get comfortable with.
PrimaLuna does it for you continuously so you never have to bias, you don't need matched tubes and the tubes are run in their sweet spot so they last longer. In a pinch you can even run different tube types (KT88s with KT66s for instance).
Also the PrimaLunas are built so that they can use a variety of power tubes. You can read about this in the reviews.
So that's why I think the PrimaLunas are a good place to start. Reselling shouldn't be a problem if you find you don't like the PrimaLunas or tubes in general.
Good Luck and have fun!