Very tempting.

If you go the Reisong way, you simply throw the supplied tubes out and buy new ones (my cost is around $200), the handful of physical parts is around $25-$35.

You will need a pair of small side cutting pliers, a pair of small needle nose pliers (around $10 each) a phillips screwdriver (that you likely already own) a soldering iron of some sort, and some electrical solder ($10).

This gets you up around $1100, which makes that 8600s for $1500 look good.

It all depends where you are in life.

I am an old fella, with maybe 20 years left before my card is pulled from the deck, and I'm called home. Between that, and the kind of listening I do, the cheapest solution is probably the best solution. If I thought I had a long life ahead of me my choices would be different.

So, here is what I would do: I would find a pair of nice sounding speakers that work well with small watts. I bought a pair of Tang Band horn kits.

https://www.tb-speaker.com/products/d4-1

Because I like "the American sound" I am also running a Polk Audio powered subwoofer:

www.polkaudio.com

With this set-up I can pretty well run any tube amp, 2A3, 300B, 6V6, EL34, KT88, and have about $1000 tied up in speakers. (probably less)

For source, because I move around, I have about 6000 albums, ripped to exact audio copies (Flac) on a hardrive, and play through my laptop, with a DAC, which I feed the amplifier with.

I have several amps, some solid state, some tube.

The Reisong A-10/12 (modified) is the best bang for your buck in a tube amp at this time, but long term (longer than I have left) I would lean towards the Elekit TU-8600S Tube Amp Kit - Lundahl Version. That will probably be the first/last tube amp you will ever buy.

Just last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN1e4kOHJWU&t=577s

Personally I was tempted to buy a Elekit TU-8150, which can use 6v6 output tubes.

But I have to back up a bit here........................

Last Christmas I bought myself a Reisong A-10. It arrived, and sounded horrible. So, digging around I found this website and ordered the parts to do the mod on the A-10. It was mentioned here that I could use a 6v6 in the A-10/A-12 while I was waiting for the mod parts to arrive. I did that and fell in love with the sound of the 6v6. So, currently, my A-10 is modded to specifically run 6v6 tubes, and I have since bought an A-12 to mod over the winter when the snow flies here. I will do the full mod on the A-12 and run KT77's in it for output tubes.

The TU-8150 is a smaller (cheaper) version of the TU-8400.

A review/look-see can be found here:

https://cheaptubeaudio.blogspot.com/2019/02/click-pics-to-enlarge_19.html

George,

New idea, interesting. The reviews are promising. I’ll read a bit more about this. Doesn’t look very traditional as you said.

Hi Matt...................

It looks like a good straightforward build, takes an amazing range of output tubes, and has the option of some very nice output transformers.

Building it will require patience and triple checking everything you do. It won't be a fast build.

I would not be afraid of it.

Thank you Junkman George for replying to my questions! I hadn't thought about this idea. It's a safer start with tube amplifiers for sure. Thanks for the valuable suggestion!

If you decide to go this way there are several adjustments you can make to tailor the output sound, so let me know.

If I go for the A-10 I will be glad to accept your advice. Thank you.