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What do you see as the downside of tubes?

I have decided on getting a tube amp and it will be the integrated Mastersound 300B driving a pair of Living Voice Avatars, so at least that decision has been taken.

My main question is what you see as downsides of having a tube amp. As I've decided on getting an integrated tube it's really about what the downsides are I might want to know about beforehand.

The ones I'm aware are the following.

-The tubes need to be replaced and in the case of a 300B this will be somewhat costly.

-Bias is another issue but I'm not sure how big an issue. Do you plug in your meter every so often or just when you roll tubes or replace a dead one? The meter as such isn't gonna be a big issue as I don't think it's that expensive.

-Heat won't be a big issue as we have no kids nor a nosy dog that could get burned. Hope my electricity bill isn't gonna go through the roof, but then again, I can't quite imagine that.

I'd appreciate if you could add whatever your experiences are regarding this question are as I'd like to know more before I buy it.

Thanks
krauti

Showing 1 response by jaymark

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jaymark
519 posts
 
I was a solid state amp/tube pre-amp man for years. My systems sounded great. Then I purchased Canary monoblock tube power amps and mono-block pre-amplifiers. I have not listened to my superb solid state set-up 30 minutes over the last month or so.

The sound of an all tube system is so seductive. Semi hit the nail on the head, at least for me, in his post. I don't like the maintenance but I am now convinced that the sound of tube amps make the headaches of biasing and testing tubes worth it.

Now that I have tried tubes, I will never go back.........
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