Nice summary weighing the differences and trade-offs @millercarbon. In the end I agree that the tube presentation is the one that stirs my soul with vinyl and the phono stage. Whenever I contemplate a SS phono stage I have to look really hard for one that doesn't remove the tube sound from the rest of my gear. The closest I come is with the Tom Evans phono stages (i.e Groove+ SRX MKII and others). These phono stages do a nice job at keeping noise super low and providing a very wide dynamic range yet without injecting many of the negatives of SS phono stages.
In the end I go with a tube phono stage instead of trying desperately to find a SS phono stage that sounds the most tube-like! It almost sounds silly to type that.
In the end I go with a tube phono stage instead of trying desperately to find a SS phono stage that sounds the most tube-like! It almost sounds silly to type that.