Many of us have used tube preamps with SS amps to bring some desirable tube qualities to our systems, and others use SS preamps and tube amps. In 1973 as a college kid I ran a PAS3x with an H-K Citation 12. Later a Motif FET pre with av MV55 amp. All worthy experiences. There is no single silver bullet, for this or any other system voicing conundrum.
A Black Box to Solve Everything
Tubes vs. solid state?? There's a thread out right now about this exact question (there always is), but I didn't want to take it off subject. So my question is; is there a device that could go between the preamp and amp that has variable harmonic distortion capabilities? I know there are tube buffers, but they are not really addressing the point because they use line level signals and don't have the distortion of a good 300B tube being pushed beyond its limits. My thinking is that of a black box with switches and knobs to adjust harmonic distortion to mimic different tube types. It would also have to have a bypass switch so we could readily and quickly A/B the thing. Any ideas?