Tube pre sspwramp vs sspre tubepwr

I think you'll find as many people in one camp as the other. My experience has been that the "realness" (for lack of a better word) I find characteristic of tube equipment seems to come more from the amps than from anything further up the chain. However, I have heard some wonderful systems that paired tube preamps/DACs with SS amplifiers (ARC LS-25 + ARC 100.2 comes to mind), so there can be some magic there as well. I think it depends on what you're looking for. Personally, I'm a bit torn between the two. I tend to prefer the sound of tube amps with classical and folk music, but I like the speed and punch of SS for rock and jazz. My tastes mostly lean towards the former, so for me (for the time being) its tubes all around.

I heard this discussed many times over the past few years, and from what I can tell there is no clear answer to which is better. I think it ends up being one of personal taste

Cheers,
Ken

Sc53: You're thinking of the VT100 mkII, which is a tube amp. As Garfish mentions, the 100.2 is its solid state counterpart.

sc53: The couple of times I've heard the 100.2, I thought it sounded excellent, and seemed to have the same ARC family sound as the VT-100. Unfortunately, I've never A/B'ed the two so its hard to compare, but empirically speaking, the 100.2 is a very good amp.
Ken