JP's cousin gave me a tube hi-fi amp last year at Thanksgiving. It was missing two tubes and sat around for way too long. I told him I'd get it working for him if I could try it out. After much searching, I found the tubes it needed and bought them on Amazon. They are made in Russia, where tubes are alive and well.
Tube amps have a hard-core cult following of audiophiles. Supposedly tubes produce better sound than solid-state transistors. 20 Watts of tube power is reportedly the same as 40 W of transistor power. As an engineer, I just don't buy it; watts are watts. That's like saying 60 mph on a motorcycle is faster than 60 mph in a car. It might seem like you're going faster on a bike, but 60 mph is 60 mph.
There's a certain wow factor about the intricate structure inside the sealed tubes glowing red-hot and making sound. It's almost like having a caged wild animal. I found that the problem with tube amps is that they generate heat. Lots of heat. This one put out at least 1000 Watts of heat. It didn't take long for it to warm my small space to sweat level. I was afraid to leave the room with it on, for fear that one of our heat-seeking fur generators would try to take a nap on top of it. I'd still like to try a 100 W Marshall guitar tube amp with a big stack of speakers, but the way they are priced, I don't see that happeneing any time soon.
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