tube amp for home theater AND 2 channel?


I posted a while back about how I was trying to do 2 separate systems in 1 room. One multichannel for home theater/gaming and 1 tube system for 2 channel. I think I decided that doing 2 separate systems is too much for me now, so I’m going to dial it back down to one system: Onkyo AVR, Monolith 5 channel amp, Klipsch La Scala for the mains and probably some other klipsch heritage speakers for center and rears.

Part of the hesitation about getting rid of the dedicated 2 channel system was that would mean probably not using a tube amp, something I’d wanted to try for a very long time.

But today I thought, what’s stopping me from using a 2 channel tube amp connected to the AVR pre-outs for Left and Right mains? Then....when I go Pure Audio or Direct thru the AVR from the Bluesound node, I would still get the benefit of tubes into the La Scalas, something I’ve wanted for a long time.

But....this tube amp would then be hooked up the whole time watching movies and playing games. Is this an issue? Is there any downside to this? I’m probably in the range of $1500-$2k for a tube amp. if I have a tube amp on for 5-6-7 hours playing games or watching movies, am I going to be drowning in tube costs?

128x128johns21

Showing 2 responses by holmz

Or run a tube preamp, and SS amps.

The HT side can bypass the preamp on some tube preamps, or at least if the preamp is on, then those preamp tubes last a lot longer than power tubes.

I’m running tube amp 2 channel I’m also running 7.2 channel HT and the tube amp powers the 2 front channels. I just run pre-out from my HT receiver to a spare input on my tube amp. This is the basic premise of HT bypass.

I really don’t see why any tube amp user would do anything different.

Jerry

^Similar here^.

Just if one is starting from scratch, then one may prefer a tube preamp and then some other (SS) amp for what is predominantly HT in terms ofd hours/day or hours/year.
Or buy a spare set of tubes up front.
Or get a tube amp that is friendly on tubes.

But those speakers should not be too power hungry.