I'm one of those that you talk about. Although I've never tire kicked a tube amp, I have thought about trying one occasionally. I've owned tube preamps, phono stges and cd players with no problems or complaints. However, tube amps do take tube problems up a notch, IMHO. I've been in this hobby over 25 years, and I'm afraid to try one, there, I said it. I've heard of the 'problems', and they do seem to be more likely to occur in a tube amp than a SS amp. Power tubes tend to cost more to replace than line stage tubes, and from what I've read over the years, are more likely to cause 'flame-outs'. Possibly even taking out equipment down stream, such as a speaker driver. Some, like myself, are streched as thin as we can finacially to get the best that we can, but cannot afford any kind of reliability issues. I buy everything used, most from Agon. If a tube flames out and takes out a driver, it could take months for me to afford to get my system up and running again, finacially. I don't have a second system, or spare parts (preamps, amps, etc) laying around. Now maybe I'm wrong and I should downgrade from BAT, Classe, and Threshold to Rotel and NAD so I can have money to afford second systems and spare parts, but that's my choice. To squeeze every last penny into one system. Reliability becomes much more important in a situation like this though.
Regards,
John
Regards,
John