I did give you a pro and con between tubes and transistors but from initial costs and costs associated with powering the amplifier since these facts which should be considered if installation and setup costs is an issue for you.
Look at the costs for a AL-80 B, averaging $1500.00 new. Now check the price of a kilowatt solid state amp and they start around $2300 and go way up from there. Then take into consideration the AL-80B can run on 110v on SSB mode while a solid state really needs to be on 220v so there is another expense bringing a 220v line to your shack.
I already mentioned in my opinion you can't you hear the difference on the other end between both amps. Have you been listening to QSO's and can you tell if a station is using a tube amp before the operator describes his equipment?
Sounds to me your set on tube amps and the AL-80B is one of the most popular kilowatt tube amp used, how can you go wrong?
Don't forget, to increase your signal just one more signal strength on the other end, you will have to run 4000 watts over the 1000 watts an AL-80B puts out. So is all these comparisons and discussions on different tubes and amp efficiencies worth your time?
If you don't have a beam antenna, invest in that first and 1 kilowatt out to the antenna (tube or transistor, your antenna doesn't care which) will be more than enough! If you ever heard I2VRN on 40 meters at night, he is one of the strongest European stations on the band and he is running 800 watts on a 40 meter mono-band beam.
Something to consider...
