I did try, got one rebuilt and bought seriously good output transformers from Sowter, who make some of the best around, they cost $600 from the factory direct, put in a 35w triode amp, bass still wasn’t a touch on a basic Quad amp that cost the same as those transformers alone.
It does seem tube amps are far more popular in the USA than anywhere else. There is a huge audio industry in Germany and I can think of a single manufacturer of tube amplifiers.
I have had several SS amps in my day. The last was a Mcintosh MC302. Nice amp, but, doesn’t really compare to BHK300s. The bass is part of the whole. Most realistic sound I’ve ever had in my home. Measurements don’t really matter, if you like the sound.
Watts are watts, and 35w were insufficient for my speakers, never mind their bandwidth. Now have an amp 250w into 6 ohms and all is good in the world. It doesn’t matter how good or bad an amp is, if it hasn’t got enough power it ain’t going to do the job.
I think you tried a very special kind of tube amp that is known for limited bass performance aside of very special combinations where it excels (still with compromises).
There are so many kinds of tube and hybrid tube amps, of which several sound very tube untypical (regarding typically expected characteristics).
Also there are several German tube gear manufacturers.
I think it’s important not to try to generalize a single experience without a more broad background. You had an experience which no one doubts. But there are tons of experiences with very different sounding tube gear ahead of you if you want to build a more solid opinion.
But you cited the valves/tubes as the part that was lacking, not the power. My system puts out amazing bass, even with one watt of power, and tubes. My goal is to reproduce music in my home, that sounds as close to the original as possible. In my opinion, the straightwire approach leads to sterile sound, more often than not. I’ve used a few passive preamps in my time, with SS amps, not so great, especially in the bass region.
I found tube amps both lacking in power to drive my speakers and provided an uneven response. It’s a common feature with valve amps, as the profile is often similar.
There’s no point discussing dislike of straight wire with gain. From an objective point of view, I’m not sure what else an amplifier is supposed to do. If it just amplifies the input signal without distortion and sounds sterile, surely that is the fault of the incoming signal, not the amplifier. How can straight wire with gain sterilise a signal if all it is doing is amplifying it free of any distortion? I fail to understand any alternative from this pretty fundamental starting point.
I mentioned a week or so ago I used DSP to mimic the distortion profile of a Prima Luna Premium amplifier and applied it to my solid state amplifier. It had the expected effect.
Quite the opposite, the Sowter transformers are very highly regarded. The amp is now being sold in the USA at an outrageous price.
It replaced another one that they no longer do, a bit like this, but it was a 22w 300B-XLS that had rave reviews (but needed more sensitive speakers).
These prices are absolutely mad, but the way.
In my experience, the straight wire with gain thing isn’t entirely real. That is, most components with this objective have crap tons of negative feedback, drastic filtering, zero crossing distortion, Class D, etc to produce the desired performance. I like them for things that require lots of tight sub bass, but for the most part their apparent performance comes at a subtle cost to the sound. The farther down the chain you get, the more flat and lifeless things become.
And of course it is important to note that most digital recordings produced by standard PCM DAC in a purely “clean” system don’t sound amazing. I mean, try a high quality Benchmark DAC and powered studio monitors. On paper everything is there, but even awesome recordings sound dull and clinical.
I didn’t mean the quality of the amps but the type (relatively low powered triode amps meant for a selective part of audio setups).
Furthermore the fact that the characteristics of tuned power amps (which I count indeed as having the demand to be matched precisely and which often come with compromises) could be brought in relation with tube amp characteristics concerning preamps (which is a wholly different matter without typical compromises).
All this just is a matter of differentiation and can’t be judged generally over „tune amps“ from an experience with triode power amps (independent of their high quality) imo.
In a real-world sense this is true; no one has ever heard straight wire with gain.
The perfect amp may perhaps be straight wire with gain, plus infinite damping. As a theoretical concept it certainly has hypothetical appeal. But we will never hear such an amp.
Well, not until there is the perfect source and flawless speakers. 
That depends entirely upon both your speaker sensitivity and on how loud you like to listen. With a set of Klipch horns, you can still ruin your hearing with just a couple of watts.
When I was young I typically listened at between 80 and 90dB. But today I generally listen at around 60dB. So even a 20 watt amp never gets challenged inside of my system anymore.
Octave AUDIO (http://www.octave.de/en/) ?
…and many more (this is one of the good ones)…the tube hype started way before the vinyl hype…some were present for a long time, others jumped on the wagon (like T&A)
This last sentence is so damn true and the reason why neither the most neutral DAC nor amp nor speaker is the best sounding, at least usually not in a setup with otherwise all purely neutral sounding/measuring components.
In my experience even in an optimal room extensive add. measures within the components (not widely known ones) are necessary until the superiority of a more or less completely neutral chain begins to get valid.
“Generally” not exploited? If you want to believe the Chinese, I guess - not to mention their western customers, mostly large corporations that would prefer to be able to do away with the 40-hr work week, minimum wage, ban on child labor, collective bargaining, requirements that they don’t pollute or hurt their employees and fellow citizens in other ways. IOW, China has allowed many western companies to take advantage of conditions similar to those in the U.S. between the Industrial Revolution and New Deal. So before humane regulations and laws.
I’m not saying ALL Chinese factories operate thusly, but MANY do and it’s actually not in the western corporate media’s best interest to report them because these outlets are parts of the same portfolio as many of the companies that have moved mfg. to China. Yet they do anyway: The grim truth of Chinese factories producing the west’s Christmas toys | Retail industry | The Guardian
So in a sense, even if the better-treated Chinese workers don’t feel “exploited” - it comes down to culture and the fact that it’s a rapidly developing nation with a rigid (and rigidly enforced) governmental and social/societal structures. The “lower cost of living” you reference is only partly true - the real reasons for the shifts is that the “worker” in those countries has fewer rights as does the average citizen (and environment). In any case, even before Trump’s tariff war with the Chinese, manufacturing there was already getting too expensive for the executives of some top corporations and their taste for extremely high profit margin at the expense of all other corporate “responsibilities” (and yes, corporations do have responsibilities other than pure shareholder value - read a charter some time if you doubt me). So… some of these companies have already been moving (or trying to move) their mfg. to Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh and other places, where labor is even cheaper than in China - and just as easy to train with excellent work ethic. The only thing they lack is the infrastructure, but like China it will be built up and they will develop. There will be pictures similar to the one you posted above in those countries too. And the dance will continue - SOME companies will keep shifting their operations/mfg. from country to country depending on which have the most lax labor laws, lowest payable wages, fewest environmental constraints, etc. It’s not a GOOD thing, frankly.
Hence I’m happy to continue doing business with firms like PS Audio (and if what you say is true, Chord and Devialet) who, for all I’ve ever read, try their hardest to avoid this cycle in the research, development and manufacturing of their products so as to create meaningful jobs in their respective regions/countries and act as responsible corporate citizens, acting not ONLY in the aim to increase shareholder (or owner) wealth.
I certainly agree with that. Audio Note are the most extraordinary company, they make virtually all their components and complete systems, most use tubes, perfectly matched, with an almost infinite range of options. I’ve heard a couple of their smaller systems and was very impressed, but not so much by their Ongaku system.
Yeah, Audio Note UK is probably the most esoteric tube manufacturer and ignoring most of common electronic engineering basics, but anyway has a broad fan base for their unusual sound. They certainly produce quite some tube hate factor among most lovers of solid state amps. Also not my kind of fish, I love tubes that sound most solid state like, solid state that sounds most tube like, DAC’s that sound most vinyl like and vinyl setups that keep track with digital’s virtues the most etc. I think that’s what’s closest to the optimal.
Trust your ears and not the MeasurBators!
The problem with measurements is they show one side of a three sided story. That particular side usually has a agenda !
What are the other two sides of the story?
Left and right ears?