Tried tubes and LOVED it, now what?

@nasaman I’m glad to hear you found more happiness with tubes.

The Cayin A88T was a very good product, and Steve imported a lot of them. You can certainly do better, but you have to work a bit to ensure you don't just make a sideways move.

I agree with @freediver in that outside of output power on paper, the EL34 outclasses the bigger tubes, sonically.

For me, it’s easier to stick with an integrated tube amplifier, and an obviously more compact solution. I’d suggest finding an Air Tight ATM1, Jadis DA60 or DA88S, or VAC Auricle. While Air Tight calls the ATM1 a power amplifier, its level controls allow you to use it as an integrated provided you don’t mind switching cables to change from one source to another. The Jadis models sound about as good as you can find out there, and also allow you the flexibility to dial in the best sound for you by running ANY EL34 / 6CA7 / KT77 / 6550 / KT88 and maybe even the bigger tubes by simple plug and play. Finally, the VAC Auricle can come with a decent phono stage if you do analog, and don’t have a better external. I predict while you’ll need to have a bit of patience to find one of these, as they come up for sale less often than some other products, you’ll find any of these allow you to easily hear that you took a few steps up the ladder

@charles1dad you really make an excellent point on how much of a difference coupling caps provide.

@nasaman I certainly echo Charles’ view on coupling caps. Along those lines, I’d prefer you upgrade to a superior platform first. Then, dial in the tubes and coupling capacitors as time passes.

I’m sure you’re right about that YT video of the Air Tight and B&W bookshelf loudspeakers. Cayin really made some excellent amplifiers. But I believe when you move to something like an Air Tight, Jadis, VAC, etc., you land on a destination piece, and those products will make that apparent to you in short order. In other words, you buy something that’s meaningfully different from the vast majority of what’s out there. Once there, you can maximize performance around that platform.

In terms of reliability, as someone who’s owned a DA60 for more than a decade along with two other integrateds from the company, I can say the Jadis DA60 or DA88S come in about as rugged as anything you’ll find. I had to put mine in order when I bought it, but it provided me a laughably cheap on-ramp to the amplifier. After I fixed it, I’ve never encountered an issue. Like so many tube amplifiers, apart from the chassis and the Jadis transformers they wind themselves, and set them apart, every component on the amplifier is something you can easily source from any of the ubiquitous parts suppliers. And like 99% of tube amplifiers outside of the SET world, it uses the Mullard long-tail pair driver circuit, nothing unusual, difficult to understand, or work through. Finding a tech to get it back on the road should prove no trouble. But I want to say the same thing about the Air Tight and the VAC products, though I believe the latter employs printed circuit boards, which some may consider a bit more "proprietary" in terms of a design than a hardwired product, but still more than workable