I love the sound of tubes. I ran tube amps of various configurations with either a Sonic Frontiers or Melos hybrid tube preamp for over 25 years in my main system. About a year ago I bought a pair of single ended solid state Valvet mono blocks. Since then I also purchased audio alchemy's latest preamp with it's optional power supply. I bought it initially as a dac but it really sounds great with the Valvet monos so it's replaced the melos preamp for the time being. Very surprising to me but, I'm not ready to sell the tube equipment yet... The Valvet amps sound very similar to the SE 6550 amp that was in the system prior. The difference is the 6550 (or KT88's) are a little (and I mean very little) fluid in the mids than the Valvets. The Valvets on the other hand have removed the distortion that I didn't realize was there to the extent it was with the SE amp. I'm not ready to say one is better than the other.
The ups and downs of tube vs. SS...
I’d like to hear from the people that have had both. Why tube? Why SS? What are the ups and downs of both? How does owning one or both differ? I’ve always owned SS, but also lusted after tubes....
jtweed
jtweed