Getting into tubes?

Dragon, I heard the Mesa Baron a few times. I thought it was a great sounding amp w/the 5881s it had. I know it accepts many other tubes. You may want to check it out. From what I heard, Mesa is now out of the high end market(will only do pro audio now). I don't have any experience with the two brands you are considering, but I have always wanted to check out Antique... It is very easy to cut corners on a tube amp, all the stuff that people never think about(we usually only talk tube types/brands). Things like the transformers(THE most important - and expensive part of a tube amp), PCBs instead of hard wiring, capacitors, resistors, etc. That being said, Jolida and Rogue do very well. If I was forced to buy another amp at less money, I would pick up a Jolida 302B, and upgrade the tubes and power cord immediately. But, from what I know about you, you may not like the sound. But, maybe one day you could give it an audition and see. Good luck!

I checked out the AES SE-811. I found it to be a great amp. Very open and clean. If you can handle the fact it is only 12(I believe) watts, you would be fine. More people than you would expect can do very well on that amount of power. I have seen they now have the same amp with an 845 output tube. The name is probably SE-845. I think it may be 27 or 32 watts. I would love to get the opportunity of listening to it. Then there is also the Cary SE572(20 watts). Benefits of the AES amps are the input level controls, which you can use for volume. This would bypass the need for a preamp if you are only using one source, or don't mind switching cables back and forth. I have yet to hear a bad tube amp from Cary.