Questions for the tube amp aficionados...

Build quality is huge.

I only buy tube gear with name-brand power transformers. Good ones run around $75 and up. You do not want to trust high voltage to something cheap. If you're buying a $200 amp, ask yourself how much of that goes into quality parts.

Likewise, good ones should be built point-to-point. I don't like high voltage and high heat on PCBs; they're better suited for solid state. A PCB can hold up, but they're difficult to repair if they get damaged.

Continuing on with the power transformer, the power supply should be of high quality. You do not want four diodes and a couple of cheap capacitors doing the rectification. A tube rectifier is better, you want big capacitors and, preferably, a few chokes to really smooth the power. I prefer to have tube filaments run on DC instead of AC. AC costs less to manufacture, but it's harder on the tubes and sounds less precise.

Also, I like output transformers. They get the output impedance much lower which is a big help in increasing the damping factor.

You'll find these things on better tube amps. The reason cheap tube amps lack these things is because they cost money.

A gigantic myth is that cheap tube amps are cheap because of lower labor costs.

Bullpoop.

Cheap tube amps would cost about the same as expensive ones if they had these things. Cheap amps are cheap because they cut all - and I mean all - the corners.

The only way to cheap out without compromise is DIY. Even then, you'll put $400-$500 of parts into the amp. That's raw costs, not including labor.

The good news is that a tube amp done right will last a lifetime. You'll need to change tubes and drop in fresh electrolytic caps every so often, but that's like changing the belts on your car. You have to do it now and then.

Honestly, I think the look of a tube amp is responsible for many sales. If you go back to the Golden Age of tubes you'll notice that tubes were always placed inside the chassis. Modern tube gear always puts tubes on the outside because people like to see the tubes.

Not unlike early electric light fixtures. The lightbulb was a huge novelty when introduced, so most fixtures didn't have shades because people wanted to see lightbulbs and that's what sold. As lightbulbs became common, glass and other shades were used.

Do not get hung up on tuberolling. Tubes only contribute a little bit to the sound and I don't want to amass several hundred dollars of tubes so I can plug and unplug them looking for differences. I think it's better to use a good set of tubes and listen until they die. Besides, the circuit used is more important to the sound, as well as the power supply and output transformers. Putting $200 tubes into a cheap amp that lets AC ripple into the main (B+) power is probably not going to sound as good as a well-filtered amp with $20 tubes.

The problem is that most people don't bother to learn what's going on inside. All they do is read a review fromsomeone sayin that it sounds good (you can find a positive review of anything, by the way) and an attractive case.

Also, do not assume all tube amps sound the same. There's a lot of variation. Hearing one does not give you an idea of what a wider sample sounds like. Here's a small list of what makes a difference:

1. Diode or tube rectification
2. The use of chokes and power supply filtering
3. Whether the power supply is regulated
4. AC or DC on the filaments (you can regulate the filaments, too)
5. Amplifier class (usually class A or AB)
6. Circuit topology (single-ended or push-pull are common, but there are more)
7. OTL or transformer-coupled output (output transformer quality is critical)
8. Types of tubes used (directly-heated triodes (DHT) sound different)
9. There's another layer of complexity in designing the circuit and determing how the tubes are run and how the signal is routed

All of these are much, much more important than the tubes you run. Using some rare NOS tubes and putting Black Gate capacitors inside is no guarantee of quality. It's like putting 20" rims and a wing on a crappy economy car. A true sports car with ordinary steel wheels and no wing will actually give you performance.

They get hot too, the output tubes, I have two all tube amps, one 10wpc and another 60wpc

If you're getting into tubes, get or make one that uses readily available tubes. NOS tubes are expensive. New tubes are mostly made in Russia or China. Most tube amps require matched output tubes. Some have auto-bias circuit. Others have manual bias. My 10wpc amp has auto-bias but my ARC amp has manual bias for each output tube. I use a true RMS multimeter to bias each output tube.

Get a good soldering station with variable temp and changeable tip. I have a Hako 936 with a Hako 907 soldering iron. I use a Fluke 89 multimeter but I think the 87 is good enough. Get some good grabber clips also. And a solder sucker.

No. I use Radio Shack 62/36/2. Circuit boards populated with parts go through a solder wave machine and the solder used is as inexpensive as possible. So why should I use expensive solder?