What Solid State PreAmp?

I now run all tube amplification (linestage, phono and amp), but I do own a couple of solid state linestages (Placette Active and Levinson No. 32). For the money, the Placette Active is a very good linestage -- dynamic, open and detailed, and it projects a very large and realistic sounding soundstage (for a solid state unit). The Levinson is more "refined" sounding (less artificial "edginess"), but is a touch dull and unexciting compared to the Placette.

I have also heard systems with Ayre preamps that sound quite good. I like the clean, "fast" and nimble sound that Ayre electronics manage to produce while being substantially free of the artificial edge to the initial attack of notes that makes a lot of solid state gear sound a bit mechanical and artificial to me.

Dcstep,

Manufacturers pick the tubes they put into new equipment based primarily on practical considerations -- cost, reliability of continued supply (meaning new, not vintage stock), and reasonably good sound.

But, there is no way for a manufacturer to know what sound any particular customer would favor based on that customer's taste and complement of other equipment. Given differences in taste/need, it does not make sense for a manufacturer to spend a LOT of money on NOS tubes that may actually sound worse to a particular customer.

There is no consensus on what is "better," that is why the ability to make changes to the sound by the relatively simple act of changing tubes is a good thing.

Dcstep,

What is the "best"? You seem to think that there is one objective best and that the manufacturer, particularly of something expensive, should incorporate that in the gear. Perhaps the designer of cost is no object gear used tubes that meet your "best the designers know how to deliver" criteria, it still may be possible for a particular customer to better satisfy his own personal taste or better match the component with his particular system by making alternative choices. That is the reason for tube rolling.

Personally, I would not be spending big bucks on gear if I could not hear the difference and had to "pay experts" to make the choice. This is particularly the case for me because I hardly ever agree with the so called experts (e.g., reviewers).

The H-Cat suggestions are worth looking into, particularly if you are looking to "wake up" a system. It may not be the answer if the system sounds too hard or in-your-face. It is not that the H-Cat is itself hard or harsh, but, it may be too revealing in some systems.

From a practical perspective, if you keep your amps on all the time (I would with high power solid state because such amps need a lot of warmup time to come on song), you would have to also keep your linestage on all the time or at least have a stage which mutes output when it warms up to avoid turn-on sounds from the linestage feeding a power amp that is on. This could eliminate some tube linestages from consideration.