Your interest and curiosity in trying tubes is a natural progression as it is for most audiophiles. On the positive side, tubes will definately allow you to hear even further into the musical landscape, fleshing out more details. But as one reviewer wrote they are funky devices that start wearing themselves out as soon as they are powered up. Being a bit compulsive, I was always concerned what they were doing in my system and are they ok. Also since I like my system powered up most of the time, even for background music, solid state for me was always no brainer. I started off replacing my ss preamp with a tube preamp, looking for a design that used less tubes rather than more, tube phobia? It sounded very good, enough to then try a tube power amp. The combination was exciting & involving. I then started missing the lower noise floor & dynamics that ss can bring to the table for all types of music. Thus the reason I now reside with solid state. Maybe I have gone full circle? Just an alternative opinion.
I know alot of audiophiles like the hands on approach for tube rolling and the ability to change/improve the sound. Why is it that alot of tube gear have more cabinet screws to remove than solid state knowing that easy access to those tubes would be more desirable. How many of you lost screws to tube rolling, where are they going? Finally I have read in the threads where a defective tube can take out resistors or other critical components creating a high repair bill. In worst case scenario one member reported his ARC tube amp caught fire although I have yet to experience any of these problems myself.
