Old Amp vs. New Amp

he told me that CJ parts were too expensive, and his advice was to forget it. CJ is history for me. 

I don't buy that.
you may send me a pm if you would like one more option. 

Petrela, I agree, provided you avoid SS unless you can replace the electrolytic caps yourself, and make sure they are available. Old "tube" equipment might be the best buy, but when you take into consideration high priced repair, that might not be a good idea either.

I recently bought an amp for the bedroom from "Parts Express", and was quite pleasantly surprised. For the main listening room I have PrimaLuna mono blocks, and I love them. People on a budget are between a rock and a hard spot when it comes to the "high end".

Those prices are the result of this hobby being invaded by too many people who know why they don't show prices anymore on a lot of gear; "If you have to ask, you can not afford it".

orpheus10...  What amp did you buy from Parts Express?  I had a little Dayton amp that I used for desktop speakers.  It did pretty good until it got fried.  Now I'm using a NAD 3020 for my desktop speakers.  I'm very happy with that.

I've considered the PrimaLuna stuff.  When I do get some tubes, I will certainly look into those (as well as Rogue, BAT, VTL and MAC).

Not sure where "high repair costs" of older tubed gear are coming from. Point to point wired tubed gear is pretty easy for a competent tech to repair, to me its one of the bonuses of running tubes. My amp is 17 years old, I've owned it for 10, in that time I've recapped it for $500 and replaced a burned out resistors I think twice both times less than $100 for the repair. Other than retubing the overall cost of ownership has been modest in my experience. But again I am talking about a simple Class A , PP,  triode and point to point wired tubed amp, no fancy circuits here.

Jond, what you say is true "most" of the time. My pre-amp needs a transformer; that's something that never goes out on most gear.