Is there any way to get into tubes for super cheap


I have now been bitten by the bug. I will slowly build a system for music and theater, but have been hearing all kinds of praise for the tube world.
To be honest I have never in my life heard a tube system and until recently thought that onkyo and carver were the best in audio.
What is a good way to get started with a tube system?
What pieces are needed to really be able to make a good judgement?
I have no TT and usually listen to cds, Is there any hope for me?
I think I would like to do this pretty much all vintage, for me that is 10 years or older.
I don't think that cheap can be overstated in this case.
brownsanandy
Get an old Audio Research or Conrad Johnson tube preamp for 5 or 600 dollars. That's a great way to start. One thing you have to be careful of is to make sure there's no impedance mismatch once you start doing tubes. In this case you need to make sure the input impedance of your power amplifier is at least ten times what the output impedance of your preamp is. IE, if your preamps output impedance is 500 ohms then the power amp needs to have at least a 5000 ohm input impedance but more is better. In the case of Audio Research I know they sometimes recommend much more than ten times. Good Luck to you.
Cheap tube preamps and CD players with tube output stages tend to be fine.

Cheap tube power amps, however, often have reliability problems, and because they use poor output transformers, cannot adequately power low impedence speakers (which is most speakers).

You make it sound like you are putting together a system for your prison cell. If you can up your budget a bit, you can get a respectable used preamp and amp here on Audiogon for +/-$750, small speakers for +/-$500, and a CD player and cabling for +/-$300. If you go much lower than that, you're buying either junk or something so old that you better know how to fix it.
Jolida integrated amps are not very expensive and are new. Unless you buy a very well taken care of "vintage" unit you may find yourself spending money to keep it functional. All of these things have parts with finite life spans. The Jolida integrateds are also very nice looking. As with all gear you are going to want to match the components carefully. A Jolida JD 202 with a pair of Kef speakers would be an affordable set-up that would work well. The Kef speakers are usually efficent (92dB or higher in most cases) and are not $$$.

Good luck!