It sounds like an old argument over here that I had inadvertantly re-started. Sorry.
==I certainly wouldn't judge any amplifier based on the sonics of Magnepan 1.6.==
That makes sense, as you probably don't own these speakers. I do and that's the only speaker sound that matters to me when evaluating amplifiers. In my small experience, these panels have been rather easy to live with, and reveal upstream differences readily.
===They break by themselves; changing tubes only prolongs the inevitable===
That's what I am trying to ascertain - the frequency of the breakdowns in these amps. Your experience with them has been negative then ? How often was your pair out of commission ?
So far, after fixing the two burnt resistors and carefully adjusting the bias (on the low side - 450 mv) on a matched set of 4 quads of KT88EHs, so far they have been stable. But they do run hot and perhaps my fun is all in the future...