First, to be quite honest, I find solid state better than tubes. It just has to be the good stuff. However, I'm curious as to wether anyone actually has done tubes in a car.
That said....why not build your own instead? Aside from the power supply, DIY tube amps are availible in a million bajillion permutations.
Well, yeah. It's sort of a hypothetical, but then again, this is DIY mobile audio - I'm surprised nobody's tried.
Cripes! That thing must pull, what, four hundred watts?
That said....why not build your own instead? Aside from the power supply, DIY tube amps are availible in a million bajillion permutations.
No. No, they're not. The 6L6 is a very different tube from the KT88 - as a rule of thumb, the KT88 is both more linear than the 6L6 and capable of much higher voltages. There's a reason that 6L6s are rarely found outside of guitar amps nowadays.
For $1,000, I, personally, would build you a tube amp for your car. Probbably a heavily modified Dynaco ST-70 with a custom flyback transformer setup and enough shockmounting not to kill the tubes.