Any hope for new tube designs?

[Chuck H]

Ah! Helmholtz and I had a simulepost. Same sentiment. And very real. I hardly play anymore. I play mostly to test the amps I work on. That's partly because I no longer have time or energy to prioritize a band situation where I can play my guitars and amps at a satisfying level. Really. Ok, playing with other guys and finding a little groove and magic here and there is the real mojo. But it's also that I no longer have a reason to turn up my guitar and exploit all the tonal tools that adds.

[mozz]

They did make a dual el84 in 1 package, 6DZ5 or something? What about tubes with lower plate resistance? Possible? What about more efficient tubes that don't give off as much heat?

[J M Fahey]

a tube that has the desired behaviour without producing gobs of power you don't want

That is easy peasy to solve.

Like a certain Enzo said once: "the amp is just that thingie attached at the end of a power supply".
So by downsizing the power supply, you ARE downsizing the amplifier.

For me itīs a mistake making 1W power amps based on **triodes** (ugh! -meh!) such as most competitors do in that area.

Using a 12A*7 class **preamp** double triode as power amp is ridiculous.

Killer macho man amps use Pentodes (or beam power tetrodes, almost same thing), not triodes which is ancient fragile 102 y.o. Japanese Businessman Hi Fi stuff in his 10 sq meter Living Room.

But ... but ... 6L6 pairs put out 50W RMS!!!!

Yes ... if you feed them 450V +V that is.

You feed them less +V, they put out less power, as simple as that.

You can build a dedicated low power amp, a switchable 5:50W one (like Mesa did) or add *good* Power Scaling or equivalent, to have your cake and eat it, meaning bedroom level *and* matching Drummer if available.

Sadly average Musicians do not use their brains but their hearts or opinions or fashion to decide, and donīt use the readily available solution.

To this day I do not understand why donīt ALL amps come with some kind of Power Scaling straight from Factory .

[Mick Bailey]

I quite like my 1W 12AU7 PP micro amp. Doug Hammond's Firefly is another that sounds OK - here's a clip - they aren't all bad IMHO;
https://ax84.com/archive/ax84.com/media/ax84_m277.mp3