Impressed with Tubes

(1) A vast difference in a gain of a sense of dimmension and fluidity. I wouldn't be without one - I think I could skip a tube pre-amp, or any pre-amp at all before I'd lose a tube amp. (In fact in one system I have now done just that!)

I'll pass on 2) and 3) as I have no knowledge the Rogues and there are just too many possibilities for 3) and the right one depends on many things personal to your specific needs, including budget, flexibility, and features.

Hi KIt,

Newbie is right on target, you have to weigh all of the possibilities, especially price, which is the biggest factor for most of us. I can vouch for the Rogue 90 power amp whioh I owned for about 4 years before selling it last year. It is a tube amp with 90WPC in ultralinear mode or about 55WPC in Triode mode. It was very musical, good soundstage and dynamics. It's versatile enough that you can roll the tubes to 6550, KT88, or even KT90 and it has a built in biasing control which is the simplest that I have ever used. It is fairly priced about $2,200 new and is built like a tank. I've seen used ones on Audiogon in the $1,200 - $1,500 range. In my opinion, besides the sound quality, tubed equipment offers a dimension of fun and appreciation in this hobby that places it in another world when compared to solid state equipment. Good Luck!

My take on tube equipment is to use it where it makes sense, since tubes won't work well in every application. Certainly, the best use for tubes is in voltage amplification applications such as in preamps, input and driver stages of power amps, phono stages, CD players, D/A converters, and the like. Where solid-state equipment has an advantage is in output stages of power amps where semiconductors have a much lower output impendance and work better for current amplification. Now if your speakers are a relatively benign load tubes will probably work well and give you what Cyclonicman and Newbee say they will. But if your speakers have a difficult impedance curve, not only will your tube amps not provide a sonic improvement, they may be prone to outright failure. It has happened to me in the past. The other issue is maintenance of tubes and tube amps, so if you don't like turning dials or adjustment screws, I would stick to solid state power amps and tubes for everything else. There is something magical about the little glowing glass bottles.