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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 nrenter

nrenter's avatar
nrenter
768 posts
 
I'll quote from my virtual system:

...I wanted to go back to solid state. I've had tubes for years and loved them. I mean really loved them. However, there are compromises I'm willing to make because 1) I want something I can leave on 24x7, 2) I need something that doesn't generate as much heat, 3) I don't want to continuously wonder if a NOS set of Pope 6SN7s sound better than my NOS RCAs or if my 12BZ7s are aging and need to be replaced, and 4) I want hardware that doesn't require as much real estate.
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