I like to turn them on and leave them on all day. Talk radio, classical radio, pandora, jazz24.org, whatever. I get anxious about wasting tube life playing talk radio. I get anxious about turning on the tubes or hot class A amps and letting them warm up, then remembering 5 hours later just before bedtime. I am in and out of the house a lot, sometimes I will have 30 minutes to listen before I run out again, would be nice to just hit play. I want my kids and wife to be able to make the music GO with app on their phones and without my involvement. So I want amps than can run all day without triggering these neuroses.
I also want it to sound delicious, that goes without saying.
DIY options:
F5 / F5 Turbo - Beautiful class A phat sound, but runs HOT and long warm up time. I think the warm up will activate extreme neurosis, and prevent instant turn on/sitdown/listen10 minutes before bed. Similar anxiety as using tubes. Maybe not? Do they sound good cold? Fast warm up? I know they sound gorgeous, I love SS class A.
Modulus-86 - LM3886 based composite chip amplifier, pcb it. 35W, can be paralleled and/or bridged. Extremely low distortion. Worry about chip amp sound, I usually hate the opamp used in this design.
Sympatico - LM4780 based composite chip amplifier. More power than Modulus-86, similar concept. Same opamp and similar power chip as above. Low distortion, chip amps offer very high value.
Elliot Sound P101, P3A, P3B amps. Already have PCBs and output devices for P101.
Sol's I-60. I'm using this on midrange drivers now, it sounds great, but it's a bit beyond my ability to pull together on my own.
Any other DIY options?
Thanks