First Tube Amp: Advice? Keep spare tubes on hand?

I tend to agree with most here, especially Sogood51's reply. I would caution against buying spare tubes too soon. Make sure you like the amp first. I've made that mistake before, buying NOS tubes before the amp/preamp got here, then finding out that I didn't care for the unit no matter what tubes I put in.

Relax, once you find out if you like the new tube amp, there will be plenty of time to get into 'tube rolling'. Which usually leaves plenty of spares laying around......sometimes many more than you'd like to have lying around.

Cheers,
John

I agree Grant, buy why buy a spare set of tubes at all if one doesn't like the amp?
Example: maybe I decide I don't like the sound of this KT88 amp and want to try a EL34 based amp, or a 300B amp.

Yes, if he likes the amp he should get himself a back up set of tubes.....but let's not put the cart before the horse.

Cheers,
John

It's also worth noting that some amps require that the set of output tubes per channel be matched, in which case you would need to have spare matching sets of tubes. Other amps are biased for each tube, and don't require matching, so having one or two extras lying around is no problem. Makes a difference in how many "spares" you have to buy.

No harm making sure you like the amp first before investing in spare tubes. Don't try to "fix" the sound by rolling tubes though if you don't like it to start with.

Once you decide to keep it, get a few spare stock tubes though. Again, you can always roll other tubes later as a "tweak" if you are so inclined...or not.