A friend of mine is interested in getting into a tube amp and he asked me a question that I really wasn't able to answer.
He wanted to know how much a year he would need to budget for replacing tubes?

I said that of course it would matter on what amp he bought and how much he played it and if he wanted to play around with tube rolling.

I'm a bad person to answer his question because I just change tubes when fire is shooting out of the top of them and have never really taken up interest in rolling them.
Yes, I've owned a Torii for 15 years and are still playing the exact same type of tubes that came in it, call me weird.

So what would be a good figure to throw at him, $250-500 a year?

“If I get some money I buy tubes. If there is any left over I buy food and clothes.”

The only way to give any kind of educated answer is what you said:

What amp?

How much do you listen?

And mostly how interested in tube rolling?


You can spend all you have or not buy tubes for years or anything in between.