Tube questions for a newb~

[Vital]

I have no idea what you do with tubes. I saw a post here awhile back asking for an explanation on tubes but it is gone now before I got a chance to read it.

Anyway, what is the cost on a good tube amp and how do you hook it up? Would I still use my HK 325 or not? Would it be worth while to use a tube amp on my RF-7s? I have never seen a tube amp so please forgive my ignorance. I keep hearing how great they are with Klipsch and want to explore this hidden secret. Thanks in advance.

[kjohnsonhp]

In general a tube amp is similar in purpose to a modern solid state 2-channel amp except it uses old vacuum tube technology instead of transitors. Note that it is a 2-channel amp and not mult-channel like your receiver.

The tube amp is great for 2-channel music. If you also require multi-channel HT then you need to use both your AVR and a tube amp.

You could buy a Scott 299b intgrated tube amp and connect your CD player and TT to it. You could then take your existing HT setup (DVD connected to AVR) and run a cable from the pre-amp out to the "extra" input of you Scott tube amp.

The other option is to swap cables or have a preamp with HT Pass-through.

See the thread "My Plan...." which should be near this one on the page.

Many on this forum have a dedicated 2-channel system and a different HT setup. Others blend the two like I have and others on the thread I mentioned.

The benefits of a tube sound vs solid state can be found through a search on the forum. The tube amps are generally lower wattage which might be an issue for many modern cone-based speakers (~90db from 1watt measured at 1meter) but not for horn-based Klipsch (>96db) it is plenty.