I remember something Tim de Paravicini said. Tim is the noted designer of both tube and solid state equipment. He claimed that in properly designed circuits tubes should be indistinguishable from solid state, and vice versa. To back up his claim he manufactured a tube and solid state version of the same amplifier (under the EAR/Yoshino brand). At its worst, some of what people love about tube equipment is coloration. It's pleasant sounding, but it's still colorations. BTW, the same can be said about certain aspects of solid state sound (particularly the super tight bass). I've own or have owned a decent variety of tube equipment (Audio Research, Moscode, Counterpoint, Revox, Quicksilver, Sonic Frontiers) and I've come to the conclusion that tubes are totally cool, but at the same time, there's nothing magical about them.
