This is a very interesting question. I could simply argue that my tube amps make the music sound more like the real thing than any silly state amp I have heard. But that would verge on rhetoric.
I suspect the reason why I perceive my tube amps to be more faithful to the real thing is something going on between my brain and the sound, that I don't fully recognise at a conscious level. To digress for a moment, some of you may have read an article recently how researchers had studied individuals tapping their fingers along with some music. They found that the individuals adjusted the rhythm of their tapping in response to very small deviations in the beat, without being aware of doing so consciously.
I believe we often make the mistake of trying to objectify everything we hear in this hobby, at a grave risk of missing the point. If you put something on and just relax into the groove, then your system is doing something right. Your cognitive skills may never catch up with what you can learn about a system by just having a crack at enjoying the music.
This is all heresy to the objectivists - but RHUBARB to them, since musical enjoyment is the only rational measure of the value of an audio system.
I also suspect that one's choice of musical pleasure has a lot to do with your choice of amp - tubed or ss. Tubed is for those that want a feeling of the real thing and ss is for those playing the sonic equivalent of a special effects movie. Man is that going to get a backlash or what - cannot wait to see the voting results.
Dacquistot - this ramble of mine is simply to conclude with - of course you won't get it, till you have heard one, and you let yourself be swept away by the music.
I suspect the reason why I perceive my tube amps to be more faithful to the real thing is something going on between my brain and the sound, that I don't fully recognise at a conscious level. To digress for a moment, some of you may have read an article recently how researchers had studied individuals tapping their fingers along with some music. They found that the individuals adjusted the rhythm of their tapping in response to very small deviations in the beat, without being aware of doing so consciously.
I believe we often make the mistake of trying to objectify everything we hear in this hobby, at a grave risk of missing the point. If you put something on and just relax into the groove, then your system is doing something right. Your cognitive skills may never catch up with what you can learn about a system by just having a crack at enjoying the music.
This is all heresy to the objectivists - but RHUBARB to them, since musical enjoyment is the only rational measure of the value of an audio system.
I also suspect that one's choice of musical pleasure has a lot to do with your choice of amp - tubed or ss. Tubed is for those that want a feeling of the real thing and ss is for those playing the sonic equivalent of a special effects movie. Man is that going to get a backlash or what - cannot wait to see the voting results.
Dacquistot - this ramble of mine is simply to conclude with - of course you won't get it, till you have heard one, and you let yourself be swept away by the music.