Just guessing here, but all 3 dealers probably carried tubed equipment.

Just for reference, there are at least 10 stores in my area that are
arguably selling high end audio. Only one of them carries tubes and he has
the smallest store of the bunch.

Our definitions of High End audio are very different probably. I
would define a true High End retailer as one that carries four or five
lines that advertise heavily in the magazines like Stereophile or
Absolute Sound-whether these are 'any good' being another matter
altogether-and in most cases does not sell car audio, TV's, computers,
cameras, et al. Usually they keep banker's hours and are in upscale,
off-main-throughfare locations.



So Arny is simply wrong, certainly, when he says the tube thing is
"tiny". It's small potatoes compared to Wal-Mart and Best Buy...

Thanks for contradicting yourself, Cal.

Tubed audio, particularly tubed consumer audio is as you say Cal, "small
potatoes". Nothing wrong with that, but it is how things are.

IME most people who are into consumer tubed audio either do so because
bragging about tubes make them feel special; or because they want to roll
their own power amps, and rolling one's own SS power amps takes some special
tools and skills that many amateurs lack.

High end audio in and of itself-putting aside the question of whether
it is in fact really better than mainstream stuff-is a small market.
It's of that small market, and not the bigger audio market which is
stuff sold at Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's, big box retailers and
catalog houses, that I'm saying tubes constitute a substantial
percentage of. Audio Research, c-j, Manley/VTL, et al, are not huge
enterprises but they are similar in size to Krell, Mark Levinson, et
al. Then there is the various East European and Asian made budget
lines that are cropping up and doing some volume through mail order
vendors. It's small compared to any 'mainstream' business but it's a
lot bigger in dollar volume than, say, manufacture of high power RF
tubes for the broadcast and RF heating industries.

One may well argue that high end audio is primarily about "virtual
penis size", and perhaps it is. But whatever it's about , I know it
when I see it, and most every high end store I've been in in over
fifteen cities (I go check them out) has something with tubes in it or
can get it. It's tough to find a truly high end store-as opposed to a
upscale-mainstream home theater vendor who handles, say, Linn, or
McIntosh, two channel as a sideline-that will aggressively deter you
from buying tubes.