Can Romeo be happy without Juliet? He sure can if he could see her twenty years later from the day he first meet her. To say you can not enjoy a SS amp over tube is nonsense. I am amazed how many think just because it's tube it must be getting me closer the truth. There are bad tube designs as there are ss, and idea of maintenance along with tube rolling does bring us closer to a hobby like setting with individualising the sound to our own taste. What is right for you might not be right to me and so on.
can a tube-o-phile be happy with ss?
I switched to tubes over a decade ago, after realizing that I no longer listened to the stereo because it did not sound like real music and ss and digital were irritating, on a subconscious level. Went to all tubes and mostly LP's. It worked. I even prefer triode with no negative feedback settings, usually. Now ss has supposedly improved, and its advantages beckon, e.g., less heat, electricity and trouble, better bass and perhaps more detail and clarity. Have any of you voluntarily gone back to the dark side and been content? (with the understanding that it never really ends, for an audiophile). On an unlimited budget one might have few complaints, but this question is necessarily in the context of a semblance of fiscal sanity, not top of the line Boulder, Ayre or Zanden.