tubes or no tubes

What about a hybrid (teh hee)....with a champagne faceplate with black and silver accents.

Glad to help.

Gelmherst...buy your tubes and be happy (don't worry :)

Try to find a current production amp from a good company, one that doesn't require any real maintenance or tricky biasing etc. Most amps have quick and easy biasing procedures and some are auto-biasing.
Tubes will last for ages and operate at peak performance for the majority of their working life. Even when a tube passes it's so-called expiration date, it will still be delivering 99.9% of it's performance and in most cases you won't hear any hint of diminishing sound quality. People who sit and worry about how many hours they have on their tubes and are they really getting the best sound....well they're mostly closet SS people and have other more serious problems to worry about, like integrating with society!

I had a CJ CAV 50 for a couple of years and the most I did to it was reset the bias every 3 months - 2 minutes with a screwdriver. I owned a 40 year old Leak Stereo 20 that worked perfectly and never needed biasing.
Of the many amps I've owned, SS and tube, I've had a problem with one tube amp and one SS amp, so it's all even on the maintenance front for me.
Check out Conrad, Cary, VTL, Manley or even ARC (there are others).

Everyone should experience tubes in their system at some point. To resist the temptation is futile and foolish.....It's like eating peanut butter sandwiches and never trying them with jelly!

Rooze
PS - I must fess up that I currently have a tubed preamp but a SS power amp, but it's a temporary inconvenience that will be rectified sometime soon!