help with tubes

Anybody!? If nobody can tell me the difference's maybe someone can suggest another good one in that price range?

New or used? How much power do you need (we all don't have GMA's). Personally, I'd rather spend my $1300 on a used high quality amp than any of those you mentioned.

The Europas are 89db, which one would you suggest Newbee?

There are a lot of amps out there in your price range. I am unfamiliar with the comparisons you want to do so I suggest you take one of the amps and do a discussion forum search on it. What you will get are many referances to it and many people mentioning other amps in the same responses. Keep doing your searches and you will stumble upon some real interesting stuff.

Not that what might come next in this thread will/won't answer your question; it is just that this is a common question and the database hereabouts is amazing.

Unclejeff's advise is excellent. Not knowing your sound preferences makes a recommendation difficult, however I looked at tube amps for sale and some that attracted my interest between $1150 and $1899 were a VAC PA100/100, a Sonic Frontiers Power II, two Quicksilver mono's a set of M80's and a set of M90's, and a Conrad Johnson Primeer 11A. Personally, I would look for either a Sonic Frontier Power 1, or the earlier model SFS80, both of which should be available from time to time well within your price goal. Both are built like tanks, easy to service the tubes at home, and will reflect the differences between the different tubes you elect to use. In general the SFS80 is a tad warmer, the SF Power 1 (and 2)are more neutral. I also noted a Mesa Baron for $1200 - this is an excellent amp but it is not warm (nor will tube changes ever make it so) and if it has the stock caps they really should be updated to at least Wima caps - makes a big difference. Properly set up it has a very smooth, very neutral tone, and punchy bass. It also has adjustible feedback and 4 stages of operation from full pentod to full triode. The power output changes from about 60 wts to 150wts depending on the output stage chosen. An interesting amp, all in all. Happy researching...........

Aw...shucks!

I have a Birdland Odeon-Ag DAC, too. One of the important details to note is that the Odeon-Ag is DC coupled, which means you shouldn't really hook it directly to an amp that is also direct (DC) coupled.
My question to the thread, as I am looking at possibly getting a tube amp, is which tube amps are not dc coupled? How can you tell from the specs?

QUICKSILVER KT88

Is the KT88 an amp? Looking at the Quicksilver website,It looks like it is a type of tube. Can you clarify?
Also, is there a way to tell from the specs that an amp is AC or DC coupled?