An old collegue of mine who worked as a teacher in high school had his students to build a simple one-transistor amp. I think
he used something like BDX33 or 34.
Then I saw the version on DIYaudioprojects forum and ordered some transistors from eBay, and of course they were all fake. An new order to
German company Reichelt gave me 8 working transistors.
Testing two experimentboards revealed something interesting - a simple and very good amplifier. To take the amp to a higher level, I decided to add, after I had found on the web, a tube driver. So I got some Russian 6S31B as proposed on a Russian web site, but I guess anything had worked as well.
After trying to get the components in an old chassis for a tube project, I decided to go and buy a slightly larger wooden box, line the inside with a metal sheet, order a transformer for the driver tube and try to make something nice of everything.
The project came to a halt, before having even tried the driver tube AND the transistor together.