Would you buy a tube amp if you were unable to use vintage tubes in it ?

  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. 

The one thing the JJ’s are very good for is filling the spot when you ship for repair or to sell the gear.   
 

👍👍👍

Yes. Plenty of vintage tubes stored away in cabinets, and using all new re-issue tubes now and past few years.    I rotate the vintage tubes in/out once in a while, just to make it seem like they are all worth keeping, and from some of the best vintage tube sellers & testing, yet not finding much of a need for them as much any more. Just buy quality tubes that are well tested with a warranty and helpful tube seller and you should be good. If you can do both types, great, if not, its not as big of a deal that some like to make it out to be imo.Best of Luck.   

Yes, but i have a tester....  it's risky with 4 pin antique tubes and also any rectifiers though .   Most of my tube gear has modern equivalent or type is still made.   I do have a bunch of e180f and 5r4gy/ 274b on hand so no worries.   

I'd ask the opposite question- does the unit sound good with a modern production tube? Good old stock is depleted and pricey- yeah, I run them but it gets harder to source replacements. And in my experience, there is a big difference in sound among different tubes that are semi-equivalent if not directly equivalent. So, I'd want something that will play nicely with a readily available tube, not just unobtanium, if I were in the market for new gear today. And, what is readily available today may not be tomorrow. I've been using tubes for audio since the early-mid '70s. If I were starting from scratch today, I don't know that I go down the rabbit hole at all, but that's wishful thinking-- I am where I am. Enjoyed the journey. Appreciated the days when you could buy new old stock Tele 12ax7s for 10 bucks a pop-- which was considered a premium.