Reactions to HP's review of Antique Sound Lab amp?


He raved about the Hurricane in the latest TAS.
Anyone with long term experience care to comment?
jp
914nut
Any comments or experience with the reliability of these amps? How about biasing problems?
There are some interesting comments and thoughts from the controversial author, Anthony Salvatore, editor of the web ezine: www.high-endaudio.com. There is a lot to peruse and muse upon therein.
Good grief, Arcangelo, I haven't ever been to that site before, but I just got back after attempting to slog through most of (speed-reading here and there) Mr. Salvatore's tete-a-tete with Michael Fremer. Never even got to the Hurricane. And never going back to that site again - even though I agree with some of Salvatore's issues with the reviewing industry, the guy is just impossible to take seriously, and even worse to try and read. Pass.
I haven't had the Hurricanes for very long, but have never had a biasing problem. Neither did the previous owner. Biasing is easy and straight forward. I didn't see any mention of biasing or reliability problems on Salvatore's site. I've read that the Chinese KT-88 is not a very reliable tube. No surprise there. The Svetlana 6550s have been trouble free. By the way, I also have a Wyetech Topaz 572(which I've also sold), so my comparisons of this amp are from an amplifier Salvatore considers to be a reference. If you have tube friendly speakers, these are probably two of the best amps you can buy. Can somebody recommend a solid state amp of equal ability? I've been a tube guy my whole life.
If the Chinese KT 88s are sometimes prone to failure, can one substitute 6550s (any origin?) or EL 34s, etc. without additional problems or sonic degradation? Could there be any improvements substituting other makes? Has anyone ever tried?
I understand that the newer Hurricanes have better caps than the previous MITs plus addition of optional triode operation mode! Improvements on an already good design? Let's hope so!
I have 6550s in mine. They are much better than the KT88s that come with it. Not sure about EL34s, but I doubt it. I don't think there is a triode switch on the new ones.