Tubes? Transistors? Which are better?

(1) Carl E doesn't appear to be saying "I can hear better than you" at all. Carl appears to be (correctly) projecting that 'quote' onto D'Agostino. (2) I'm now a hardline solid-state fan, converted from my early years w/tubes. High maintenance & too much heat were my main tube complaints, not so much their sound. But with SS, it's the TYPE of transistors which make the difference IMO. Bipolar output amps sound harsh to me too. But FET's are a whole different story. I have a McCormack DNA-1 and two Ayre V3's; both mosfet designs. The Muse 160 is another of this breed, which I haven't heard, but have read about its similar signature. I had an older Luxman, also mosfet; same experience. I dunno, but I think someone told me that Rowland's are also FET topolgy? Could this be the key to warmer-sounding SS design? Now what about this KR Enterprise "Vacuum Transducer" amplifier design? What in the world is that? I'll check this out, but I'd like to learn a bit more from y'all if you can enlighten me please?

Y'all have gone way off the original subject of tube vs. transistors sound. As stated, some (like me) prefer the mosfet sound as a nice in-between tubes & bipolars. Belles 150A Hot Rod amp was just reviewed by Stereophile; they proclaimed this amp's "musicality" in sound over others' "accuracy". Some of the last few posts regarding "how faithfully bad-sounding does your hi-res. rig reproduce a bad recording?" brings up an interesting point. I finally decided that, when my rig was configured for so much high-resolution, then a lot of just-avrage recordings were no longer so enjoyable anymore, and I had taken it too far. I then decided to de-tune my rig's resolution-factor just enough, so that although the best recordings weren't so faithfuly rendered, many more average-sounding sources were much more enjoyable to listen to. Making it sound any better than that was going beyond the point of diminishing returns.

Wald - diverging is OK, I wasn't squaking 'bout that; just getting back to the original point for a bit. Now then: Tone controls? TONE controls you say? Wald you don't know how much I sometimes yearn for the flexibility of my good old Lux (solid state) Ultimate preamp. Not the ultimate in resolution anymore, but it had high & low filters, plus boosts & cuts at 3 different slopes, Plus variable-turnover bass & treble knobs using all stepped-attenuators And a tone-defeat button (which was engaged >95% of the time). But when you needed to futz around with a bad source, man that thing could really clean house! The Minimalist Designs have taken all of that away (but they apparently forgot to adjust prices accordingly). I sometimes used that old Lux, via a tape-loop, for those ugly situations. It's not in the rack right now, but the idea was to have that hi-res. system capability and still be able to musically enjoy some of those borderline sources. All that can be done anymore is to swap around power cords & interconnects when you want to play mediocre-sounding recordings. That is time consuming & hardly convenient; also goes beyond what I am typically willing to do. We could have it both ways, but the only components anymore that I've seen with any kind of tone controls are some bottom-line NAD. But then again there's always Circuit City - arrrgh!

Red: first try upgrading your internal speaker wiring & the crossover too. Refer to the Klipsch site forums & look up the ALK crossover, or email me directly for info.