I reached the pinnacle of my tube insanity in the early 2000's shortly after retiring from IT. I was one of the "founders" of AudioAsylum.com, and moderated its three vacuum tube forums for a couple of years. My first amplifier was this Bell 6L6 mono amp purchased used for me by my father in 1958 when I was a junior in high school.
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My system 45 years later in 2002 was moderately priced by audiophile standards, but a rather exotic combination of components. It included a Yve Bernard Andre (YBA) "Audio Refinement" CD player and McIntosh MR74 tuner as sources. My preamp was a custom-made
Supratek 6SN7 transformer-coupled unit from Mick Maloney of Western Australia (one of his first units - before he went to a more glitzy chrome look). That unit was replaced by a David Belles 21A preamp for more flexibility and options. My amplifier was another custom-made unit - a single-ended 2A3 stereo amplifier from Attilio Caccamo of
Tektron in Italy with an output of about 3.5 WPC. My Speakers were the 99dB efficient Klipsch Forte II's (which have recently re-emerged as the Heritage Forte III's from Klipsch.)
Supratek and Tektron are still in business, and the links above will take you to their respective websites. Below are pics of the individual components taken when I sold the system to downsize and move into an apartment after my partner passed away and her family sold the house we shared. I sold the Forte II's to Charlie Kittleson of Vacuum Tube Valley, who lived not to far from me in Lake County, Northern California. Charlie published his low-budget quarterly "Vacuum Tube Valley" magazine for a number of years, and had friends who searched for old abandoned Radio/TV repair shops across the U.S. looking for stashes of NOS vacuum tubes. He had a little storefront in the town of Lakeport. All 20 issues of VTV are now available as free downloads
HERE. Fun stuff for old "tubers" like me - and perhaps some of the older audio enthusiasts who hang out here at AudioScience.
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15 years later, I am living very happily - at the age of 76 - as an expatriate in the mountains of Western Panama. When I moved here in 2012, I brought a pair of Paradigm Atom monitors, a Teac A-H01 DAC/Amp (which died recently after a nearby lightening strike) and an Intel NUC which I use as an HTPC running LibreEec/Kodi. All of my music is now digital - a mix of MP3 and FLAC, plus I listen to internet radio.
Being on a limited budget, when the Teac died (fried chip on the main board), I bought an SMSL Q5 DAC/Amp for temporary use. In three weeks, I plan to order an MP-303 hybrid integrated amplifer (tube preamp section + Class-D power amp) from Musical Paradise, which for $188 appears to be an incredible bargain. I was pleasantly surprised to see Garry Huang of Musical Paradise here at on this thread at the AudioScience tubes forum.
One of the reasons I discovered and visited AudioScience recently - and just registered is that I am looking for a good, inexpensive DAC. As far as I can determine, there is no way to get USB digital out of myIntel NUC/Kodi (LibreElec) system. The MP-303 has a DAC on board - but it has only USB input. The ongoing discussion about the Topping 50 is excellent, but I may go with a $70-80 used SMSL Sanskrit 6th for the time being, and get the Topping later. In a region with lots of thunderstorms and heavy lightning - like here in the mountain rainforest - it is good to have spare components - even with good surge protection.