My problem was that I had nothing of equal quality to use them with.
I had worked with old vacuum tube equipment since I was in 5th grade and
loved the sound it produced, but my knowledge of electronics was minimal.
For a decade I studied tube gear I thought sounded good and by 1979 I
started building my own circuits from scratch.
By 1980 most people thought tube gear was dated, and that solid
state was better, but to me the proof was always in the sound.
It wouldn’t be until the mid 1990’s that the tube revival took place.
Now there are 100’s of companies making tube gear with advance
topologies never thought of back in the 1980’s when tube gear
was not as popular.
Unfortunately much of the newer affordable tube gear runs the tubes
at a very low voltage 5 to 10 times lower than tubes were originally
designed to run at, sometimes as low as 12 volts.
This is to cut the cost of using high voltage power supplies.
I run all my tube gear at 250 volts DC with regulated power supplies.
In the 1980’s I made a small batch of tube direct boxes under the
name “VTDI” (Vacuum Tube Direct).