Boy, you've opened up a jumbo can of worms. I've run the gauntlet, starting with all ss equipment and ultimately ended up with all ss with the exception of my tube phono pre. I've owned some pretty nice ss gear over the years(Spectral & Rowland) progressing to a combination of ss and tube(Rowland & Lamm & BAT) and gradually trading up to what some consider to be some of the best tube OTLs(Tenors). Each step was enlightening, moving me closer to what I thought would be my idea of real music should sound like. God those Tenors sure were pretty to look at and sounded magnificent, but unfortunately I had previously purchased speakers that were meant to be driven by more powerful amps. Let's go buy some speakers that offered a better impedence curve and were more efficient and see what happens. Done! But what if I want to buy another pair of less efficient speakers? I ultimately didn't want my choice of speaker to be dictated by my choice of amps so I traded my beloved Tenors for a 300 watt ss Boulder 1060. Does it sound as romantic or look as pretty? Hell no! It just sits there in all it's simple teutonic beauty waiting to be fired up. Does it sound as good? It's really difficult to directly compare the two, but when all is said and done, it sounds great to me. Do I miss my Tenors..yes I do, but not enough to go back. Take the journey yourself and see where it leads you. You might just end up on the other side of the fence just as happy as I am today.
Our we Lazy?
I want to start this thread by clearly stating that the purpose of this question was not to fight or rehash the battle of tube vs. solidstate as one being ultimately superior or better than the other one.I hope that besides personnal taste and the different "flavors" listeners enjoy, along with system matching, there is agreement that in the last ten to fifteen years that reference tube and solidstate amps sound very much alike and more like real music. The days of euphonic warm or detailed but harsh-bright sonic signatures are gone when it comes to world class amps.When my audiofile friends and I discuss power amps we always come back to these questions;1}With the finest solidstate amps[Pass Labs,Rowland,Ayre,Edge,etc.]sounding so terrific, why put up with the hassle of re-tubing,getting the right tubes NOS etc.,and the expense of re-tubing on a on going basis?I guess one man's "tube rolling" for pleasure is another man's pain in the butt.2}The sound of a tube amp changes over time as the tubes age, why put up with this hassle when it can be avoided? We like the fact that a solidstate amp will preform at its optimial level everytime we listen to our systems. Please you all, these questions are sincere and not an attack on tube amps or their owners.As stated already the goal was not to fight over something that is obvious ,world class amps are world class amps regardless if there tube or solidstate! We have listened to wonderful sounding tube amps[VTL,LAMM,ARC,CJ,etc.]and thought they were great, however they offered no special virtues that would lead us to put up with what we regard as "hassles" compared with solidstate amps. We would love to hear from our fellow GON members regarding this topic and what has been your experience regarding this topic.Let's not fight but have FUN sharing our opinions and viewpionts on this topic. Remember we might just be "Lazy" audiofiles who rationalize our own position on this matter!