A tubes vs. Solid State question.

Tubes I liked, because they are more forgiving, less synergy problems overall, and always a nice touch to any system. And they are the most Tweakable so this gives options to the user, in regards to tube rolling, normally easy to change out capacitors, and power conditioning etc..., they are just a tad more sensitive to change and can reward or tell you no this is not working faster than solid state. However I have gone the way of the darkside and found for my end need that Solid state is superior all around. This would probably not be true 10 years ago, with the inferior digital and other solid state equipment, but with the much, MUCH better Engineered Recordings Today from about the year 2000' on up and Gear that has Closed that gap between the Tube and solid state with making some very musical and emotional pieces its very tuff. It will take some matching still with SS' no doubt so not every combination is perfect, but you got to many choices to get there, basically I guess the still safe bet in the middle of the road is to get a Tube pre-amp in between and you find some of the magic if it is still needed. But as for tube amps, to much money to run and too many power tubes to get the kinds of power I need to have that bottom end and super smooth scale I like to hear.

Dazzdax, I agree, I always found the higher quality powered solid state with high efficiency speakers the superior way to go.

When driven too hard tube amps do not clip much to the ear, but are out of steam, well done solid state which in my opinion will always use Bi-polar or Jfet type transistors can do this just about as well, and still have Slam factor to wake the dead keeping characteristics of non-fatiging music and highs, of course backed by digital or analog capable of this in the first place. Mosfet has never seemed to work for this in my experiance so I stay away, whoever said that mosfet is more tubelike is wrong in my opinion, however Mosfet used in a Hybrid amplifier design with the inputs rounded off by tubes in the first place can work well. So for me Hybrid systems are the best, Via Tube Preamp, with excellent solid state amps, or using a hybrid Amp or Intergrated could have similar results. Tube amps in the end for me are too much hassel, too costly, to much to re-tube, and too much heat for things that in fact can be very closley matched with tube solid state combo's that will get you 99% of the way there with reliability on top of that.

I have had a couple thresholds, Not all are as bad, but honestly I think the Thresholds I had were Bi-polar or Fet, or IGBT type anyway, no mosfet... the newer ones I am not sure, I did have a CODA which is also by developers of original thresholds it was excellent, Coda to this day uses a FET input with bipolar out, and yes I think they are for the world of expense in the mark levinson, pass labs the better of them. but have not heard all of it, I have heard some Krell which I don't know what they use and really don't want to know to be honest, they never impressed me for the money especially.

Now that being said, call boulder, Dartzeel and the likes of these guys, they are in fact some of the highest praised and closest sounding to tube and pure musical solid state devices on the planet, guess what all exclusivly use Bi-polar devices, they state way better sound, smoother responce, and much higher reliability than any mosfet can provide. I have always heard the difference and reality is many of the newer mosfets of Rotel, or whoever are normally in cheaper amps, and another fact that most hiend manufactures will verify if you call them is many have even moved away from mosfet based designs and gone to bi-polar the older and more musical stable technology, what does it mean, Nothing accept what your ear hears, back to the pass designs I don't know the answer, but I think he just went back to his low power hi quality amps again called "first Watt" and this is an un-altered Quote right from his own page, remember designers sometimes build with the current fad, and Mosfet was a 90's fad to some extent, so I guess to answer your question Pass found his own design comprimised.

"from first Watt, mr. Pass, heres the link and quote...
http://www.firstwatt.com/products/f3.htm

First off, for comparable devices at a given bias current, we see that the power JFET has much less distortion. The original F3 circuit was designed with a MOSFET, and comparing “apples to apples”, the power JFET operated with one-fifth the distortion of the MOSFET.

That’s only the beginning. The JFET has much less distortion operated as if it were a MOSFET, but it’s not a MOSFET, and it has characteristics which allow for even better performance.

When we look at the anode (or tube plate) voltage curves for devices we see what I would call the “triode character” and the “pentode character”.

In recent years, advances have been made in vertical JFET design which makes them more competitive in switching applications, and as a result power JFETs have been re-introduced after a thirty-year absence. Earlier this year I published the “Zen Variations #8 – the Power JFET Amplifier” and now First Watt is introducing the model F3, at this time the world’s only commercially available amplifier using power JFETs.

And to the best possible solid state on the planet for less than a pair of Krell mono's or whatever , it aint cheap though is the Dartzeel, heres a quote and link as well...

"darTZeel chose bipolar transistors -- ultra linear and fast -- for a straightforward signal path:"

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/dartzeel/108.html

Yes, and no,, the only best resonable but still far too expensive, costly to run, and replace tubes are the CAT mono's.. Atmosphere's are okay too, but again put one of the tube pre's in front of one of the best solid states and its gonna be tuff to Fight the good fight for excessive tube usage as well, I have heard what many believe to be one of the best systems with 30,000$ VAC mono's and wilson Grand slams, well it was not overly impressive, and I have heard some of the supposed best solid state mark levinsons on Eggleston works, and Krells as well, well again not overly impressive, so there is a balance and in no way is just tube amp systems going to be all superior to some great solid state, but this is not represented well by the big name products all the time on either solid state or tube. For me the most popular Tube's of Audio research I do not like, and The most popular for solid state Krell I do not like, so I might be the 1% that can't hear real music very well and 99% of you love these products :)

Sorry correction above, I meant VTL mono's with wilson's, I never heard VAC's.