What year did tube lose to SS


There was a major paradigm shift when CD became the media of choice I think it happened in 1982. All of sudden I went to the recprd stores and found CDs instead.
Similarly although I was too young to remember first hand, there had to be a year that saw the golden era of HI FI all tubed mostly stereo gave way to Transistor or Solid State. Please take a guess. I have no statistic but I think it was 1964. Was that The year when more SS amps were produced than tubed amps?
mechans

Showing 2 responses by jyprez

I know this is an old thread but I didn't understand you contrasting tubes and transistors with analog and digital. Both tubes and transistors are fundamentally analog devices (although either can be used in digital circuits). But to your question, tube lost to solid state on day one if a more linear response is the only objective.

douglas_schroeder

My point is that the tube vs SS issue has nothing to do with the digital vs analog question. Both tube a ss amplifiers can be built as class A A/B or even D. This is a digital vs analog question, not a tube vs. SS one.

My post was simply to clarify this because the original post starts out talking about the introduction of digital media but then ends by talking about the shift from tube to SS.

Tube can be very good and I have hand built several tube amps. They sound very nice but they still can measure up (if you actually do the fourier analysis of the frequency response characteristics) with the best SS amps. Distortion can be pleasing to the ear but it is still distortion.