Tube or not to tube?

Tube amps are great and definitely worth trying out.

A note on your choice of speakers. A number of posters incorrectly consider speaker sensitivity as the most important factor when choosing a speaker for tube amps. This is not the case. With a tube amp you need to select a speaker with a benign impedance curve across the frequency range. A speaker that has a big variance in impedance across its frequency range will give a tube amp a very hard time.

I drive speakers rated at 88db per meter with a 12wpc amp to very loud levels with no hint clipping. They are designed to be used with tube amps and have a very flat impedance curve.

Regards
Paul

Thank you for all your input so far. Listed below is a link to the speakers i currently use: http://www.us.alegriaaudio.com/Emma.htm

hey,

i am grappling with the same question. everytime i get the urge to thro a grand into tubes, i just turn on my rig., i invested in a tube audio design tad-150 preamp awhile ago when they were available and the combination of 200 wpc ss and a nice tube preamp gives you such a nice sound with very little of the maintenance issues that come into play with tubes, and you can drive any speaker you want.

so try a tube preamp with what you have.

Tube amps don't require herculean efforts nor advanced degrees, but they do require one to use sufficiently appropriate speakers in order to achieve a listening experience that goes far beyond what you've experienced with SS, though many would disagree. It's the best audio move I ever made, and I don't intend to return to SS. Lots of nice amps available, so do some web research, do some Googling, check out some of the Audiogon virtual systems.