Valve Amps: Where do you stand

i bought a yarqin tube amp a few years ago..tried it for an hour or two and then tried it again a year later.
utter junk..put me off tubes for life..they claim warm sounding lol..harsh weak sound..me 3 onkyo av amps wipe the floor with it..so does my av pioneer ax10i
sitting in me cupboard.

I have a Croft rebuilt set of Quad II's (I don't regard them as technically mine, so don't feel I can sell them). They're glorious - gloriously coloured, but used with a Croft preamp, they sounded wonderful into vintage early spec Quad 57's as well as Epos 14's - Naim A5 was the preferred speaker cable too, but it only cost a fiver a metre then... Glenn's own series 5 power amp was very good too, but my gawd there's some effin' tat out there in the market, which badly designed, not always reliable and has a very noticeable effect on the speakers used - probably why people hear many of these differences... A Radford STA25 I had forty years ago when it was around twelve years old, needed its leaky supply caps changing and it sounded no better than a Naim 160 (it must have been faulty then ). Thirty years ago, the Audio Innovations 500 was a favourite amp and it sounded like you'd put a blanket over the speakers. Worked with tizzy pro-Acs though I remember and the oval shaped 300 was similar I remember, like a valve version of yer average soft toned and slightly gutless MF A1...

My Sonneteer kicks out as much heat as many valve amps. Great in Winter but in 34 degree heat right now, I could do without it. I do wonder about the effect of heat on the perceived sound of an amp. All the physically warm ones have sounded warmer and better as they heat up,

Me too. My Campion is about the same as an A1 so the Alabaster must be really hotl

I have had not had the experience of many of you on here with amps. In my price range for a pre/power combo I found SS amps to be a bit harsh at the top. I do not suppose you would have this problem with decent SS amps. I have had a NAD pre/power combo, a Cambridge Audio cxa60 integrated and an Arcam P75 in the last year or so. They were harsh, except the Arcam which was dull.

I now feed my old Quad 99 with a Chinese Little Dot Mk IV preamp and it was just what I was looking for - sweet highs and mids, for my ears at least. Bit lacking on the bass perhaps and lacks a little attack but has weight without being forward. For the money, the Little Dot was a good bargain and I would not know how to get more bang for my buck without shelling out quite a bit more than the £750 I paid for this amp combo.

Lots of people, seem to like the combo of valve preamp and SS power amp. I don’t have a great deal,of experience there mysel because I have tended to use integrateds.

I much prefer the rose tinted warm sound of valves to the cold clinical sound of SS.

If you know what I mean !!!

my yarqin tube amp is harsh as fek...cant use the thing

got 10 sets of speakers here mucker..still crap..

I agree with Snowdog. If it works for you then that’s all that matters. Also there are loads of grain-free and harshness-free SS amps apart from NVA. Personally I don’t regard them as anything unusual or special in that regard. I would agree they are lacking such nasties though.

Just recently I had a John Shearne amp which was really smooth, almost velvety. My Sonneteer also surpasses any NVA I’be had had for clarity and shows not a hint of grain or harshness. A bit too load back for me, but Albarry are also lacking in any such traits. Dave and I disagree on the Sugden A21a but I find it clear, smooth and open. The SE version is even better. My mate had an Audio Analogue,,which again was sweet, clear and open, with no grain. Just a few examples, but I believe there are many, many SS amps that will deliver in this respect.......and I have still to hear so many.

Over to you sir really

'The real thing' sonically in ones listening room would be too much to take for long I reckon and if your combination gets you investigating more and more music, then who the eff am I to say otherwise?

I just remember that when the Quad rep brought round the 77 integrated (unloved ergonomically and still a bargain used), i heard a wondrous sweet and delightfully *musical* presentation I'd not heard from Quad since the 22/II days. the 77 preamp built on this and offered a bloody good phono stage too. back in 2001, I bought a supposedly 'used' one from a dealer on my travels for £175, the intention being a second system, fully boxed and mint with remote, but the box was too big when we moved in addition to the clocks I'd lumbered myself with (another Sh#t story), so I sold it at small profit, only realising my mistake later when I discovered the main preamp, now a Bryston BP25 as it was cheaper than the big ATC I'd just sold, needed 24 hours to fully come on song (it sounded stark and almost clinically 'accurate' for the first few hours - and I didn't leave it powered 24/7 as I should have done possibly). Looking back, the ATC preamp was probably better for music 'from cold' and the 77 preamp definitely so, as the BP25 came to this musical level after twelve hours at least. The BP26 separated the gain blocks in terms of power supplies and the power supply was enlarged and placed in a full width matching case - the price doubled! - so maybe the sound was better from the off perhaps?

I have to give a shout to Glenn Croft again, as his Micro 25 preamp is as tonally honest as any good solid state preamp, properly drives power amps that don't like a passive driving them without hum (the Crowns I love for example) and yet is a reliable long lived all-valve design at moderate price for a hand made item sold through dealers... the 25R and RS are merely a genuine musical refinement on the excellent basic design, not what I'd call a major eye-opener in terms of sonic fireworks - in my opinion obviously...

Not really. There is no specific valve or solid state sound. That idea is largely a misconception.

A good amplifier should not have a 'signature' that denotes what type of design it is. 

If you can, try and get a listen to a Creek Destiny 2 amplifier, If you didn't know what you were listening to, you simply would not be able to say whether is employed valves or transistors.

I SO wish I’d had the chance to try Croft. I’ve even bought a preamp and a power amp off EBay. The seller pulled out of the preamp sale and the courier messed up delivery of the power amp.

My mates have had Croft and loved it. Always regretted selling, too. They always say it’s flawed but wonderful, but if you don’t experience it, you can’t really know what they mean, the thing is, I’m settled now and I probably will never know. But you have to stop somewhere.

I have only heard the various 4040 Andy 4140 models. I’m guessing the Peter models are very different,