Tube or solid state

Tube amps in my opinion are too high maintenance, although they sound good for certain music. In a world of growing shortages, tubes may increasingly become difficult to find and expensive to buy. I like the idea of a tube preamp coupled to a nice solid state amp. Besides, small signal tubes last quite a long time depending on the design of the tube preamp.

Can someone recommend me a good tube preamp that would fit on a desktop $500 budget?

@audiomike33 

https://www.schiit.com/

https://www.schiit.com/products/saga-2 Under $500

I live close close by. I like more vintage gear, but they make very nice affordable sounding equipment, very nice on there demo floor. Made in USA etc. 

I have there pricer Dac and their cheap passive sound great! 

Below is the typical form of reproduction of a "square" signal by a very good tube amp, at 100Hz, 1000Hz, and 10KHz, I let you judge the massacre...

@spaceguitarist FWIW there are tube amps that can reproduce those squarewaves and do it properly, on account of having full power response to less than 2 Hz on the bottom end (so no measurable square wave tilt at 20Hz) and response well past 100KHz on the top end.

Just so you know.

@spaceguitarist FWIW there are tube amps that can reproduce those squarewaves and do it properly, on account of having full power response to less than 2 Hz on the bottom end (so no measurable square wave tilt at 20Hz) and response well past 100KHz on the top end.

No, you are totally wrong.

Even the most "high end" tube amps, sold at stupidly high prices : deliver more than bearable distorsion to still be called "hifi" gear. And of course they can’t reproduce square waves (who cares... music isn’t square waves). Not to mention the electricity consumption which is totally ridiculous in our time of global warming and energy crisis. Not to mention wear, microphonic parasites, noise ratio, ...

Again : I’m not stating that tube amps don’t sound good : they often do, at least just like any well built amp can sound good (you can easily find as much shitty tube amps as good ones).

But this kind of deprecated technology is called LOWFI , not HIFI, for good reasons : it doesn’t provide "fidelity" at 2023 expectations.

You could read this funny review from ASR (and trust me if I tell you that ASR is not my cup of tea as I think they understand nothing to audiophile reproduction... but at least if you focus on technical details : it’s an information source of reference).

Luxman SQ-N150 Review