First foray into tube amps

Hello! 

First foray into bottles....  nice.  The absolute FIRST RULE in buying tube amps, the manufacturer must be around and stand behind the product, otherwise you’ll have an expensive paper weight and a hole in your wallet.  

Next, ask yourself how much heat gain inside your listening room can you tolerate?  Have forced air AC, or just limited to good old windows with a box fan in it?  

The aforementioned are absolute, especially servicing your amp.  For example, old Mark Levinson amps like the 336, 33H, 33, etc. are SS, but for the purpose of this discussion, in my experience,  shops generally do not like servicing these amps.  These amps get very hot because they are biased high, hence they cook the caps.  The ONLY place I’ve gotten to service my old 436 was 3MA in TX, and George Meyer on the west side (of Los Angeles).  Okay, enough of that...  

How are you with a multi meter and taking the covers off amplifiers?  If you are not comfortable with removing the top case, then you MUST buy an amp where all the tubes are exposed.  Old style tube amps, they require hand basing with a multi meter; if this is not your jam, then an amp that auto biases the grid to heat the tubes is mandatory.  

Next, what is your tolerance for buying expensive tubes like KT 150 and KT 170 bottles?  If you do not like doling out bucks to replace tubes, then your choice is a less powerful amplifier.  Do not get a big VTL, or  Audio Research 750 or 610 amp.  

Have you considered maybe a hybrid amp that uses a tube input stage but uses output devices for the hard work?  A signal tube does not work as hard as a power tube, generally.  

Then lastly there is budget.  I mean you can go from a few thousand to multiples of thousands of bucks.  

Anyways, enough of the psycho babble. 🤣  In your post, you said you like midrange warmth.  Let me start with Lamm amps.  These guys are something else.  I have ML-1.1 monos, and they are glorious, 3D in front to back, left to right, and everything in between.  Midrange is beautiful.  Lamm makes all tube amps, and hybrid amps that carry the house sound but they bring more in the way of transient attack, better dynamics, and a more bass.  These are expensive so if your goose that lays your golden eggs is on vacation, buy used of these.  

I’m rambling on here so I’ll make this short.  Some solid state amps do a great job at doing midrange bloom and romanticizing the presentation to some degree.  This would be Pass Labs Class A amps.  The ".8" is the current generation and the ".5" is the previous.  I personally like the greater midrange warmth of the .5’s.  I really like the midrange bloom of the older Aleph series of amps.  Okay, last thing, there is this thing about preamp plus amp and their interaction to reinforce the that house sound if both are from the same manufacturer.  Equipment that has symmetry between one another is very important.  Some preamps don’t play nice with some amps & vice versa.  Last, last bit of advice, listen to it with you own music when you go audition the amp. Happy bottle amp hunting.  

There’s lots of commentary about tube amplifiers. Anticipate you will learn a lot more when you start buying them.

I wish I’d better understood harmonics before I purchased tube equipment.  I think I would’ve ended up in the same place but may have influenced some of my decisions.

Basically, tube amplification achieve even harmonics and more pleasant listening so some people say.  And solid state produces odd harmonics which some people say is edgy and not as comfortable to listen to. But very good solid state amplifiers are really quite good to listen to if done well.

and then to understand harmonics, the next step is to better understand what distortion specifications mean and how they impact what you’re listening to.

I’m still learning about this area and like so many other people I take the easy way out and I challenge ChatGPT to explain odd and even harmonics, etc. I have a musical background so hopefully it comes easier but still it’s a very challenging area and barely discussed but incredibly important. If you are buying amplifiers this area is especially important to understand. As with most things you tend to learn more after you spend a lot of money.

In my system, i biamp. Solid state for bass and tube for mid and tweeters. That offers its own challenges and may not be the best choice for many. 

@treepmeyer if I were in your situation, to minimize cost I’d buy a used Klipsch which you can easily sell later since they’re popular, then you can try less expensive tube amps with less tubes so tube rolling would likely be significantly less expensive. Also, there is MUCH  more choices of affordable lower watt tube amps.

Good luck.

treepmeyer

Pure Audio Project speakers are terrific, and a great value for the quality of sound they produce. I'll be adding another pair of speakers (high sensitivity) later this year, and they will be on my short list....as will Volti.

The important thing with the Pure Audios is to find out which tweeter design you prefer.....horn, Voxactiv full range, or 10" coaxial. They all sound very different, though I usually lean towards the horn or the new coaxials

Reading through the posts here, I can see how it can seem intimidating. But think about it this way... you could easily asked the question about buying your first solid state amp or preamp and gotten similar detailed and contradictory information. Looking at your first post... you had a good short list. 

The most important step for you will be to use your best judgment and get your first tube amp. After nearly forty years of solid state amps I bought my first tube amp about ten years ago. I am soooo sorry that I did not do it earlier. I have experienced no failures. I have changed to tubes in my amp once. All of my components have been tubed for the last seven years of so. I would never consider going back to solid state. 

So, my recommendations are to do it. Once you own one... well, the difference between zero experience and owning and using one is the biggest step you will ever take. Your level of experience goes from none to nearly infinite more than zero. Stick with highly reputable companies... Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, or MAC and go from there.