It is becoming conventional wisdom that the sound of tube and solid state are converging. Perhaps in some respects that is the case, but, there are aspects of certain tube gear I haven't heard matched in solid state stuff. In general, better tube gear presents a larger scaled soundstage and a more natural, relaxed sound (I am not talking about warmer and sluggish). The initial attack of notes seem more realistic (less brittle and artificially edgy) and the notes seem to bloom into space and then decay more naturally. Better tube gear also tends to sound less "dry" (I am describing a sensation more than a particular sound).
I am a bit leery of making statements about tube being superior in sound to solid state because, frankly, I think a lot of tube gear sounds worse than the equivalently priced solid state alternative. I really don't particularly like most high-powered tube gear. If a speaker is efficient enough, I like the sound of well-built single-ended triode amps; if more power is required, I like output transformerless tube amps.
That said, I've heard a lot of solid state gear that have certain aspects of performance that better my tube gear and I could easily with such. For example, the Lyra Connoisseur linestage and phonostage sounded pretty good to me--very dynamic and beautifully dense and realistic harmonic structure. A friend has a First Watt J2 amp that sounds reasonably good on his horn system (he says it does less well driving his Spendor SP100s). I've also heard nice sounding systems driven by Ayre amps and Belles amps too.
I am a bit leery of making statements about tube being superior in sound to solid state because, frankly, I think a lot of tube gear sounds worse than the equivalently priced solid state alternative. I really don't particularly like most high-powered tube gear. If a speaker is efficient enough, I like the sound of well-built single-ended triode amps; if more power is required, I like output transformerless tube amps.
That said, I've heard a lot of solid state gear that have certain aspects of performance that better my tube gear and I could easily with such. For example, the Lyra Connoisseur linestage and phonostage sounded pretty good to me--very dynamic and beautifully dense and realistic harmonic structure. A friend has a First Watt J2 amp that sounds reasonably good on his horn system (he says it does less well driving his Spendor SP100s). I've also heard nice sounding systems driven by Ayre amps and Belles amps too.