Help: low Maintenance Tube Amp short list.

Don't know what your budgetary considerations might be, but my suggestion would be Mike Sanders' Quicksilver Triode. It is not on their website last time I looked (hope he gets it up there soon), but I know Mike is making them and selling them. I have two friends on the East coast who own these amps and cannot say enough good things about them. Like the BAT and the LAMM, they utilize the Russian 6C33C tubes and put out 65 watts in triode. I've owned three different pairs of Quicksilver amps and have loved every one for its own qualities. My current favorite amps are a pair of 300B SET's Mike made as prototypes, which I use in my home system with Klipsch La Scala's. His amps are all hand-wired and overbuilt like tanks. The Triodes are about $5.8K a pair. His V4 amps are KT88 based and are around $4K pair. The later can be found used ocassionaly. I doubt you will find the former on the used market..you would have to call Mike Sanders to inquire further about them. He sent me a picture of one. It appears to be on a similar chassis to the V4's. I posted the pic - you can see it here:

http://www.nwlink.com/~jax/TRIODE~1.JPG

Jax2, that's an interesting amp to learn about. Thanks for the tip and the photo.

Glad to hear it Matchstikman. Once I heard it in my system I knew my search was over. They are nice people to deal with and will take the time to answer all your questions.
Last time I talked to Mr. Aronov, at least I think it was him, he was very kind and informative. At that time he beleived the Svetlana 6550 were the best all around tubes and didn't think you should waste money on more expensive tubes. Have heard some prople say they really like old KT88's though. Some interesteing comments at AudioReview on the amp as well. Think it still is rated a perfect 5 out of 5 there.
Happy Listening and good luck with your search

For true plug and play tube amps, I'll ante up with Audio Valve. Starting with the Avalons ($4500 for the pair of monoblocks), they include red and green LED's that tell you when a tube is going bad and needs to be changed. They are fully auto-biased, the tubes are easily accessible (by unscrewing 4 thumbscrews that hold the glass tops in place), and they sound great to boot. I have the ppp45's and I couldn't be happier with the sound or the maintenance-free life.

Michael

I can second the Aronov LS960 for excellent performance, and no adjustments to make. You can even eliminate a separate preamp (with its powercord and interconnect) by getting the LS960i for about $1600 on Audiogon. But then there is no built-in phono, if that is a priority.