Sorry but I have to call BS that tube rolling doesn’t matter. I have 3 pairs of new production JJ12AU7’s in my never going to use drawer. Within those JJ’s I have the plain and the gold pin. I just spent $3K to have my Rogue M-180’s brought up to new specks and upgraded to “ Dark “ status. I pulled the JJ’s at about 40 hours of burn in as I couldn’t take it any longer. I put in a quad of Seimens Nickle plates. I have a quad of Tekefunken G73-R’s to go in when the project is fully setup. I replaced the 2 new production Tung Sol 5751’s at about 100 hours with NOS Tekefunken 12AX7’s and after a few days traded those for NOS 5751 GE 5 Star as it was too edgy. FWIW it takes about 1 hour to cool down and start up different signal tubes, and there is no biasing. That being said I was very impressed with the new production Tung Sol’s. I’m loaning them to a friend that I trade tubes with to try in his guitar amps. The one thing the JJ’s are very good for is filling the spot when you ship for repair or to sell the gear. I have a 12 wpc Had Inspire that takes a rectifier tube in addition to input and power tubes and all three positions are self biasing. I have 6 rectifier, 7 input and 6 pair of power tubes ALL NOS. I can tell a difference in all of it. I also have 4-5 pair of new production power tubes and can tell with those too, but only 2 pair are the same value as I can roll from EL34 to KT150. To answer the actual question posed , yes I would still use tube gear. However I’m very concerned about the quality of new production power tubes. On my low power system I’ve been able to avoid room treatments by tube rolling. But with the higher power gear still breaking in and not being properly setup I can already tell I’ll need treatment. One thing I’ve heard but not experienced is “ gear that plays just as well with the new production tubes provided Vs tube rolling. Maybe some of the heavy hitters with manufacturing experience will chime in on that. So todays problem is do I trust buying an octet of new Tung Sol KT-120’s to replace the Psvane KT-88’s that Rogue currently ships with. But I can just spend $1100 with Uncle Chester and rest assured that he has the best on the planet. Or get out my shoe box full of lightly used SED Winged C’s and enjoy sonic bliss. Whoo hoo , Life is Good, Mike B.
Would you buy a tube amp if you were unable to use vintage tubes in it ?
Not available or too expensive.
Hmm.., I don't think I have a definitive answer for myself, but I would do my best to avoid such amps. There is no substitute for great tubes, I guess, especially if you value sophisticated sound.