I started with tubes growing up, than switched to SS ie Hafler pre and amps in the early eighties. While they worked great, there was something i was missing. Later in the eighties, I went back to tubes and have never left, well kinda. The rig downstairs is hybrid. The preamp and the amps are IC chip input with tube output and the main system is tube input and transistor output on both the preamp and amplifiers.