Gmood1 nailed it- I own the Pateks, and everything he descibes is true- the most pure-sounding; grainless solid state amps I have owned/heard. I run them as balanced monoblocks with a fuly balanced tube preamp, which I feel they need to bring out their best qualities. As for comparisons? The 'usual' qualitative differences b/w tube and ss will always be there, however after a string of equally enjoyable tube amps over the years, it has been nice to find a SS solution that I can actually live with (for a while anyways!)- good luck.
