During the charity auctions, I bought a tube tester, A Hickok 6000A for about $250. We ran all of our tubes this past weekend and were really amazed at what we found. An entire eBAY shipment of crap, the tubes in the preamp - 1/2 were ready to be swapped out - they were in there about 6 months with 10-20 hours/week play. The answer? It depends.... We have tube amps, tube preamp and our CD player has a tube on the output stage, so a tester is a worthwhile investment.
Tubes are a wild animal, if you are into noodling around and wanting to really spend some time in this, tubes are a wonderful way to go and explore. We love the learning, the tweaking, the noodling around. If you want a system to sound the same, just like you like it, with little to no fuss, then stay away from tubes. This is just my opinion.
Best of luck !
Tubes are a wild animal, if you are into noodling around and wanting to really spend some time in this, tubes are a wonderful way to go and explore. We love the learning, the tweaking, the noodling around. If you want a system to sound the same, just like you like it, with little to no fuss, then stay away from tubes. This is just my opinion.
Best of luck !