Lush and Romantic Tube Amps

Russbutton, agreed you can save a good chunk of money building the VTA amps yourself....and definitely learn a lot about tube amps in the process.

Rodman and papafrog, for me tube rolling has been the best part of owning a tube amp. I've tried and own 6 or 7 rectifier tubes, and several versions of output tubes until I settled on my current pairing. Unfortunately I have WAY too many signal tubes as I got obsessed with 12AU7 style tubes. I think I have 40 or 50 pairs of tubes, and have rolled half of them through my amp......the subtle (or not subtle) changes are a blast to fine tune a tube amps sound. What I learned along the way is that NOS rectifier and driver tubes are vastly superior to current production versions.

Check out tubes4hifi.com for their amps. They are modern "minimalist" iterations of Dynaco amplifiers, with very high quality components. They can use 6550, KT88, KT90, KT120 output tubes; a 5U4 type rectifier, and 12AU7 driver tubes. Their amps are also available in kit form if that sort of satisfaction is for you.....I purchased my VTA ST-120 amp already assembled with the upgraded capacitors, and a stepped attenuator to use without a pre-amp.

The VTA ST-120 is a stereo amplifier that is well north of 70 WPC high current power with the KT120 tubes, Cost is $1,340 without tubes, and $1,695 with 6550 tubes.

The M-125 mono blocks are north of 150 WPC high current with KT120 tubes and are $2,900 per pair without tubes.....$3,650 with a 6550 tube set.

I run rather expensive Amperex 7308/6922/12AU7 driver tubes, with a Philips 5R4GYS rectifier, and Tung Sol KT-120 power tubes.