If you love the sound of tubes (and make sure you do before getting into this), the occasional tube malfunction - more common in power amps than preamps - is easily outweighed by the positive. But bear in mind (as has been mentioned above), you're looking at continuing expenses over the years for tube replacement. Nothing horrific, but nonexistent with solid state. If you're new to tubes, it would probably be a good idea to buy from a local dealer you can trust so when you get strange whistling, squeaking, rushing (etc.) noises, the dealer can steer you to the problem and solution. Ultimately though, it's really only a tiny pain in the butt, and you'll learn how to diagnose problems (switch L and R channel tubes to see if the noise changes sides, for example) quickly. One last thing, though: if you're a bass freak, you may want to get a powered subwoofer, because tube watts are more expensive than SS, and bass needs power...I reached nirvana with tube pre and power and a REL sub.
