Can tube preamps be as 'detailed' sounding as ss?

These kinds of questions just frustrate the hell out of me. There are great tube preamps and lousy ones. There are great solid state preamps and lousy ones. Some tube preamps are detailed. Others are smooth and lush. The same can be said of solid state preamps. There are tube preamps with great extension in the low end and ones which push the midrange forward. The same can be said of solid state. Why do people always want to take the most elemental aspect of design and, with little or no research or experimentation, turn it into THE most significant aspect of achieving one sound or another. It doesn't work that way and manufacturers take advantage of this and YOU in order to make you think that there is only one way to get great sound and that is to buy their product which was designed to have tubes or solid state or Vishay resistors or XYZ capacitors or some propietary circuit or whatever. Among the thousand of design decisions involved in bringing any product to market, I guarantee you that there are many reasons why a product sounds the way that it does and the most important is to achieve synergy of design which will not come by focusing on one aspect of the design.

Those who say that they cannot enjoy ANY solid state preamp because third harmonic distortion overwhelms their senses have bought all the hype - hook, line and sinker - or they are a manufacturer just trying to sell product.

There are many ways to get to the promised land and without discussing effects of other equipment, cables, room musical and sonic preferences, but simply tubes or solid state in the preamp, we aren't really discussing anything at all.

Those of us who are not engineers, but consumers of this medium should realize that there is plenty of art, not just science in the design of this equipment and we shouldn't pretend to be engineers. Relax and enjoy the music.

Machman12000:

Sorry if it seemed that my frustration was all directed at you. It wasn't. Of course, you have the right to ank any question here that you feel will help you and I don't have the right to pass judgement on it like I know everything. I have heard a lot of equipment, but, by no means, have I heard all that there is to hear. I owned a Plinius SA-100 amp about 5 years ago, and I got a lot of enjoyment from it. I have never heard the CD Lad, although it was around at that time. Here are some of my favorite preamps and linestages.

Solid state

Ayre K-1Xe
CTC Blowtorch
Dartzeel NHB-18NS

Tube:

First Sound Presence Deluxe Mk II (This is a linestage only)

CAT SL-1 Ultimate Mk I (haven't heard the Mk II)

Although some of these products are considerably more expensive than the CD Lad, they will certainly blur any lines between what solid state or tube amplification should sound like. Get your hands on any of those above for audition and you can include preamps from Herron Audio, Emotive Audio, Wyetech, Supratek as well as a new solid state preamp which I understand will be (or is) cheap from Parasound. The auditioning will keep you busy for quite a while,but I bet that you will here tube and solid state products which each satisfy.

Good luck.