I was building vacuum tube electronics and plugging them into the wall outlet long before I was allowed to solder...."those things get hot enough to burn you." And the wall outlet is harmless?
Early on I cut tube sockets out of dead TV's and radios. I chose sockets that already had an inch or two of wire or component lead soldered to each pin. These wires were wrapped around brass upholstery tacks which were hammered into a pine board. Other components and wires were also wrapped around the pin on the tack before hammering it in.
I had a 3 tube guitar amp running using this construction technique. Every so often I did have to give the tacks a whack or two to "tighten up the sound."
Eventually I created better prototyping methods, but they were just that, prototyping methods. I was also designing and making my own PC boards before I was a teenager.
I'm not going to debate the whole PTP vs PC board thing, because I know that good and bad amps can be done both ways. A good amp does require proper care in design, layout and build execution regardless of how it's executed.
The pictures show a prototype of a 80 watt screen driven push pull amp built without soldering.
