after my recent experience with Todd's Sansui 1000a, i'm giving a lot of thought to using a tube amp to drive the high's of my AR-9's.

i do have some reservations though. i am one who doesnt want to bother with making adjustments, i want to "dial in" the best sound for the room and my material once, then leave it. one thing that was bothersome with the Sansui was that on some material the sound was "right" with all eq settings set flat, and on other material, eq had to be adjusted in order to get back to that "right" sound. i suspect that this was unique to the Sansui, but dont know for sure.

the Sansui is a conventional looking enclosed unit, which i find preferable to the industrial looking, tubes exposed units that seem to be the norm.

also, power. the Sansui is 40 or 50 wpc, which was plenty for the AR-9. its a perception of mine that tube amps in that power range are spendy and hard to come by. will a moderately priced and powered tube amp be adequate for something like the AR-9?

another issue is warm up time. on the Sansui i noticed a definate warm up period, about 45 minutes, was needed before the sound came together. i have heard that tubes sound best once they are warm, but 45, even 30 minutes seems excessive. i really appreciate the ability with SS gear to hit the power and have sound within a few seconds. this isnt necessarliy a big obstacle, but it is a concern.

the last and biggest issue is my perception of maintenance. i am under the impression that tubes require replacement after so many hours. i loathe the prospect of this kind of an undertaking, keeping to a maintenance schedule, and forget about tube rolling, i dont want to mess with that at all.

this lack of ambition, or downright laziness, is the only reason i dont employ a turntable in my main rig, its more than i want to deal with do it right, so i dont do it at all.

so, are my pre-conceived notions towards tubes anywhere near correct, and what am i missing? is there an easy to maintain route to using tubes? are there tube amps out there that look more like SS amps? maybe i am not suited for tubes, but after hearing the Sansui, i would really like to be.

On top of all that unless you by new/newer and not vintage you are going to have to have somewhat of a maintenance schedule to inspect and clean, bias, etc. From any information i have gathered and my two broken tube amps I'm guessing vintage tube stuff will take ongoing time and care. Add to all this how hot they run and how picky they are. Not sure about home audio amps but one thing I hated about my tube guitar amps is they seemed to sound a lot different depending on the day and place especially when taking them somewhere else and plugging them in for a gig. I think it had a lot to do with temperature and how good the electrical supply at the wall was (clean? Voltage? etc.) Temperamental beasts with a tone to die for when you got it right. I'm guessing it is a labor of love not simplicity and convenience.

BTW tube guitar amps warmed up and sounded right in about 3 minutes. I replaced the tubes twice a year when I was gigging.

When I had it rebuilt, the guy installed bias adjustment controls. I dont think it took 45 minutes to warm up, I think it was about 15 or so before it really sounded good. We didnt re-visit any of the music we listened to early in the day. so I think it would be hard to compare the flabby mids early in to what it sounded like later with different music.

elroy