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What do you see as the downside of tubes?

I have decided on getting a tube amp and it will be the integrated Mastersound 300B driving a pair of Living Voice Avatars, so at least that decision has been taken.

My main question is what you see as downsides of having a tube amp. As I've decided on getting an integrated tube it's really about what the downsides are I might want to know about beforehand.

The ones I'm aware are the following.

-The tubes need to be replaced and in the case of a 300B this will be somewhat costly.

-Bias is another issue but I'm not sure how big an issue. Do you plug in your meter every so often or just when you roll tubes or replace a dead one? The meter as such isn't gonna be a big issue as I don't think it's that expensive.

-Heat won't be a big issue as we have no kids nor a nosy dog that could get burned. Hope my electricity bill isn't gonna go through the roof, but then again, I can't quite imagine that.

I'd appreciate if you could add whatever your experiences are regarding this question are as I'd like to know more before I buy it.

Thanks
krauti
abysmillard
34 posts
 
I think Mlsstl has it exactly right. Whether you consider the extra fuss that tubes require a downside or an excuse to engage with your equipment depends on your perspective. I've found my Cary pre and amp to require minimal maintenance, just the occasional replacement of tubes as they wear out (and by occasional I mean every several years) and checking the bias of the amp.

Heat is an issue, as is the power demand of the amp.

A very big advantage in my mind is that you can make changes in the sound of your system by rolling tubes. All of the other tweaks you can do to improve sound are common to both tubes and SS, but rolling tubes gives you one more way of fine-tuning the sound.
jazzcourier
201 posts
 
The cost of a portable defibrillator.You just might need one when you are deep into the ether of musical nuance and a big power tube blows a fuse and you wonder if it took your speaker with it.Think Godzilla in Tokyo.
phd
1,008 posts
 
Heat heat, slowly destroying the other electronic parts, have been known to cause circuit fire, burning down the house, can't turn your back on them. In addition they are wearing themselves out as soon as they are turned on, eventually there will be a tube shortage & all the tube amp owners will end up using them for expensive paperweights. Other than that, tubes sound pretty darn good.
philjolet's avatar
philjolet
2,262 posts
 
the biggest drawback is the amount of inefficent speakers my SET will not drive

Then it's the price of 300Bs....
ejlif's avatar
ejlif
1,243 posts
 
One downside that has not been mentioned and for me is the biggest reason not to own tubes is having to power the system up and down all the time so that you don't use up the tube life not listening. I like my system on and ready to go all the time. I found when I had tubes sometimes I wouldn't bother playing music if I only had 15 minutes or so. It just wasn't worth the hassle. Another thing that bugged me was a few different tube pieces I had could take up to 90 seconds to be ready to play. I had a CJ preamp and I would turn it on and then stand there until it clicked on and then adjust the volume so I could listen.

I think tubes sound great but so does solid state. Some people like the ritual of turning on the tubes and the fuss I'm sure.
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