Inexpensive Tube Amps

I had a yaqin back in 2005. It caught fire and I came close to losing everything. It was a cheap piece of junk and the amp had sharp edges all over it. Cut my hands on it as well. Bought it brand new off the ebay seller in Hong Kong or perhaps China, its too long ago to remember correctly. That was the last Chinese amp I ever owned. It was a hybrid, solid state outputs and tube input. Power transformer and the entire circuit board was burnt to a crisp and that smell lingered in my house for a long time.  It also took out the crossovers in my Vandersteen 2ce speakers.  Richard Vandersteen insisted I played the speakers too loud, until I told him about the amp catching fire.

I have 2 friends that own Prima Luna. One has the high powered integrated and the other has 2 dialog mono blocks and a Dialog preamp and BOTH systems have been 100% reliable and they sound incredible. The friend with the mono blocks is using Vienna Acoustics speakers, some big floor standing speakers. The other person is running a pair of Vandersteen 3A signatures. I have listened to these systems with my friends, hours on end and musical, musical, musical they certainly are.

One more thing, if you are planning on getting an amp that is Made In China, you better do it now because there is a Trade War coming.  There are BIG tariffs going into effect for Chinese Made products so the prices are going to go up once the current inventory gets sold.  I am sure some unscruptilous dealers will jack the price up on their current inventory, just to get an extra buck or two so be casreful.

I own mostly McIntosh, made in Binghamton, NY for the last 70 years or so. I do own GE Triton References and Triton 1 speakers, both Made In China, but the company is American owned and I never heard of any of their stuff catching fire. With the Trade War, we will probably be paying more than $100.00+ more for cell phones when the new models come out.

If you buy the cheap Chinese garbage, make sure your house has good fire insurance.