I have 6H30 signal tubes in my pre amp.
What speakers do you drive with the McIntosh tube amps?
My handle gives it away. Yes, we use tubes here. We have for many years. Very, very old, beautiful magical musical glowing bottles. When Mullards were made in Blackburn, high-vacuum Teles sparkled like fine champagne, the bottles from Heerlen shined like the morning sun, RCA’s and GE’s were lush and plentiful, Raytheon black plates sweet, rich and punchy, potent high-gain Sylvanias everywhere, and even more obscure but delightful makers like Hytron/CBS, Siemens, Tung Sol and Valvo freely roamed the land. Hundreds and hundreds of them stashed away in tube caddies, like stores of the finest seasonings. To be applied in careful combinations like so many rare and refined ingredients, to create the most delicious audio dishes.
A dash of smooth plate here, a dash of richness there. Perhaps a Japanese Amperex that can take a beating in a hard circuit and still sound good. To emphasize the delicate vocal, or refine the decay of the guitar string. They can do it all when carefully rolled just right.
They sing away in some restored vintage audio equipment that is nearly as old as the tubes themselves. Nothing really compares to the old bottles and the golden era tube electronics. So musical. All about the tone. Alive. And this is from an escapee from the ‘high end’ insane asylum from long ago, where average systems cost more than a new car, and the relentless quest for detail and ‘transparency’ stole the fun away and left the exhausted spectator listening only to the equipment and not the music anymore.
Yes. Here we use tubes. Lots of tubes. Every day. Beautiful, musical tubes.
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I like the Bugle Boy 6DJ8s (6922 variant). Several years ago I found a dozen of em cheap at a surplus store ($1 each). Sound really nice in my tube buffer.
Christoph,
Amati Futura’s on the biamped system:
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The cable mess gets cleaned up every once in a while, but quickly gets automagically disorganised ;-). I started this system with the MC275 and the AMR Dac/Pre. The system seemed heavily underpowered. After inserting a €10 Chinese diy tube buffer it sounded a lot better, and then I noticed the C22 + 2* MC75 on eBay. The C22 is an absolute marvel. I tried biamping because I could, and never went back, although the 275 has ample power for the speakers.
The vintage MC40’s have B&W CM8’s and an Oppo HA-1 as Dac/Pre. Nothing wrong with that, but the stunning visuals of the Italian speakers seem to enhance the sq 
Steven
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I have had multiple tube amps for headphones, the best imho was the Cavalli Liquid Crimson.
Currently am focusing on full size setup. Just recently sold a Freya running 6sn7’s fed by a Pagoda Dac. I am now running Pagoda to a Vincent SV 237 hybrid amp (Bugle Boy 12ax7) to Salk Song-3’s.
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How is the Vincent SV 237? I’ve been looking at this Integrated for a while. Looks nice.
Have a Primaluna HP 8 El34 power tubes and mullard cv4003 driver/signal tubes.
No need to look further.
I have the same reel to reel, but cannot find any new blank tapes do you have a source?
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I haven’t done any recording myself, just played vintage recordings. This firm supplies newly manufactured tape:
Or eBay has vintage blank tapes for sale.
I am extremely happy with it. My last integrated was a Parasound Halo Integrated and I just never warmed up to it. The vincent is very powerful, transparent, and built like a tank. The only upgrade/change I did was replace the stock 12ax7 with a Bugle Boy. The built in dac is nothing special as most aren’t but I have run both a Pagoda and Schiit Gungnir MB into it with fantastic results.
‘If you want to try it out for cheap: the €100 Musical Fidelity X10 line buffer.’
Having read the ebay text, I am fascinated by this part of the specification:
‘Gall level, gall bladder buffer function: Add between on the digital audio source…’ 
Just swapped out my Tube buffer 6DJ8s. They were sounding a little muffled (which is usually a sign they are wearing out). Replaced with another set of Bugle Boys and its back to sounding right. Those old ones were a used set and had a few thousand hours on them. I stretched them around six months ago throwing a little extra voltage on them from the tube tester.
Very unscientific without testing mutual conductance on a tube tester, but you can just kind of tell when they’re run out. I’ll measure them just to be sure. (Edit: confirmed low mutual conductance on both tubes)
As shown by Upscale Audio’s website, a good lesser expensive alternative to the 6DJ8, is the 7DJ8. I had a AH Njoeb4000 (Modifed Marantz) CD player and the 7DJ8s worked great at less than half the price of the 6DJ8s.
These are the 7DJ8s I used. Worked well.
Bit late, but hopefully making up for the surprising lack of Italian tube amps in this thread:
Living room:
Unison Research P70 (driving a piar of Clio Acoustic Muze 5a)
Xindak LP1 phono pre
Office:
Synthesis Nimis (driving a pair of Kef RDM Two)
Previously owned (and still having fond memories of):
Graaf Venticinque (driving a pair of Diapason Karis)
Eastern Electric MiniMax DAC
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Love tube amps…Have not heard a SS amp, at any price, that i would trade my amps for. Chalice Audio ‘Grail’ SET monoblockes…Only 2 pair in existence…
each amp with a pair of Psvane WE 845s and a single Psvane WE 300B…and a Tong Sol 5687…all point to point silver wiring …no circuit boards
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http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue36/chalice_grail.htm
I love tube stuff. Impressive. Only two sets of those amps out there? What type of isolation feet do you have installed? Definitely power hungry amplifiers.
I have had the Audio aero capitole transtrac,beautiful amplifier.
But i was finally able to buy my favorite amplifier,the KR electronics Kronzilla SD.
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Nice rig. Those are some massive tubes…
I’ve bought some accessories from this distributor in California who carries this amp.
How many spare sets of tubes do you have??? 