"Keith G" wrote in message
...
Clipped wooly bit ;-)

Secondly, it is not easy to get an audition of valve gear in the UK
without
going to an 'audio boutique' which are few and far between and where the
prices are sky-high in any case. Hence a lot of people, looking to get
into
valves are 'taking a flyer' and buying from eBay, the Net, mail order and
secondhand. This is the reason a lot of valvies (me included) have been
willing to invite people in and hear our own valve gear where they can get
a
good listen without any obligation to spend money.

Buying without audition is happening more and more in this neck of the woods
(Highlands) as its so easy to move it on via ebay if its not what you wanted
and maybe also make a bit of profit on it too if you're lucky.


This has been very successful for me and I have had a number of visits
that
have all been very pleasant and have actually ended up with one or two
people buying valve gear. At any rate, no-one has told me yet that they
didn't like valves!! (I have only had one instance where someone appears
to
have been a bit two-faced/indiscrete and that wasn't even a 'valve
auditioner'!)

Same here, I've had a few folk who've also taken up valves after listening
here.


However, having said all that, I for one am a becoming a bit reluctant to
recommend valves to all and sundry as:

1) The prices will go up as valves become more popular (as they have with
secondhand vinyl, which is now about 10 times more expensive in charity
shops in the UK than it was a couple of years ago....), NOS valves will
disappear more quickly and the increasing popularity will encourage more
crap onto the market. (Offsetting this, of course, is that the same
popularity will ensure better continuity of supply generally....)

It could go the other way i.e. the manufacture of even better more reliable
valves - surely with modern technology the NOS valves could be copied and
improved upon?


2) Valves take a lot more 'work' than ss gear - normally beyond the scope
of
'box openers' if anything goes wrong. OK if a support structure
establishes
itself - I already know one UK valve amp builder who is doing nicely out
of
fettling cheap, new foreign amps or, as in the case of our own Fleetie,
you
are able to get the spanners out if anything goes tits-up which, of
course,
it can/probably will at some point.....

3) There is also the possibility that the greater danger of valves (heat,
voltages and even the greater weight of valve amps) will result in some
divot getting badly hurt and a great raft of legislation swinging into
place
to control everything that will sweep away the good guys with the bad guys
like it's doing with everything else these days!

Many tube amps are weighty but don't forget SS amplifiers are also very
heavy, the big Krells, ML's etc. My own SS amp weighs in at 125 lbs.

The current influx of cheap Chinky amps is both a good and bad thing (for
various reasons mentioned above) but I gotta say finally that I have yet
to
hear a valve amp that didn't comprehensively **** all over most ss amps
I've
heard in terms of 'listenability' - ie where the 'music' counts more than
the 'sound quality'......

(My 2p only....)

Make that 4p Mike