Switching to solid state amp?

@wolf_garcia 

That Harvard study has been questioned, and anyway, it's out of date.

There was an unresolved confounding factor in that study, and that was the inherent harshness of SS based systems. The alternate explanation is that SS audiophiles did not have too much free time, they were in fact escaping from their systems.

Also the study was done in the 1930's, when SS was very much harsher than it is today. I wouldn't rely on that study, if I were you.

Wolf thanks for sharing.

uhm.. ss did not exist in the 30's....(well they did... but not specifically an audio thing)

(I know, it was a finger slip, but I could not resist)

@bobheinatz 
I'm running a muscled up First Watt F5 clone I built. It's a very nice amp but it's brutally honest. The F7 is supposed to be a kinder interpretation of the F5 topology. The First Watt amps are unique amps and aren't well suited for every speaker. If you've got $10,000 to burn and you like the simple, lower power designs of First Watt, I'd strongly suggest looking at the Pass XA25. 

Ralph I had my current amps worked on recently and one of them came back dead. So not reliable. I will need to replace.

'Dead' is usually something simple! If the amp was just serviced and was dead upon arrival, it could also be something simple from shipping. If I were you, if these amps have given you reliable service in the past, I would simply get the amp fixed. If you sell them and one isn't running, you're going to take a beating on it anyway.

How old are the amps?