Tube vs. Solid State Amplifiers

I had a conversation with a friend of mine who teaches piano. She has a refurbished Steinway grand in her living room and was thinking about getting rid of it and buying another. Different piano manufacturers  came up, Weber, Bechstein, Bosendorfer, Baldwin, Yamaha, etc… The focus topic was; ‘which of these piano makers could create an outstanding grand piano’? We both agreed to the same answer, ‘all of them’. My thought is that both, solid state amplifier makers and tube amplifier makers make wonderful sounding amps but who is able to shell out the money to buy them?

Audio Research is voiced to sound like SS. Ive had several and still have a couple in the collection. DEFINITELY not a good choice if one is going for a "Tube" sound.

riaa_award_collectors_on_facebook. It appears you dont like it when the narrative does not agree with yours. Its very ironic you dont want me to disagree with a thread , when its OK for you to do exactly what you accuse me of except you want to disparage. Its clear whats important to you and your friends is to limit yourself to the corporate widget brands so that they are easier to sell on the second hand market. Nothing wrong if that’s the goal, because everybody that knows nothing about audio knows those names and thinks they are the top brands and sound the best. This is why people keep selling off gear and buying a different piece. The gear does not do what the marketing says or implies. It falls short and costs a premium. I stand against this practice.
Marketing en full regalia is what investment bankers do. People that push crap they couldnt care less about as its about the profit numbers before the product and how well it performs. In other words you are talking about products that require advertising to sell. AGD Innovates and Innovation is something done in place of buying ads. Besides you can hide nearly anything behind good marketing . Look at William Hung "She Bang" marketing can make anything a superstar. While power selling widgets on Amazon may be your thing, its not AGD’s nor mine. AGD actually cares about building a better amplifier, and does so clearly. Because you hold looks so important, even in an industry where sound is clearly more important, you relegate yourself to old technology and otherwise complete mediocrity. Stereophile just raved about the AGD amp from the show last weekend.  Seems that people who REALLY know high end audio are very impressed with the design.  https://www.stereophile.com/content/agd-gran-vivace-gan-tube-monoblock-amplifier-andante-pre-dac-str...  anyways , have fun listening I cant waste any more time with this. There are roughly 30 pair in the field and many more coming.

I think my life long Audio journey experience has lead me to believe now OTL are the most superior to my opinion against Any SET amplifier or Solid State amplifier as long as you Match the OTL Amps to a 16-ohms Speaker!!!

Owning 845, 211, 805, 45s EL34s KT88 120 and 300Bs and a mix of Japanese made tube amps purchased from ebay and direct from Sound-gate in Japan.

The only SET Amp i have not tried but curious about is the 212 super large tubes.

To my Ears OTL gives me everything i want from a Solid State & from a SET Tube Amplifier in one with out the trade-offs

I am not into Artificial Distortion and syrupy mushy or Lush sounding Amplifiers i find that after sometime i get sick of it. I need an amp that can handle any type of music i throw at it.

I gave up on Solid State few years back over time i gave up on SET Amplifiers after trying and buying and loosing a ton of money on resale. Got tired of Changing tubes constantly trying to improve on it. Once I went down the OTL route with Speakers to match it was the end of my Amp-Speaker Journey.

So for an OTL amp, you’re in need of a 16-ohm pair of speakers which I would think is rather limiting. As I’ve mentioned above, there are amplifiers that offer sound characteristics equal to the best of both tube and solid state. I can’t understand why someone would overlook those manufacturers if that sound quality is what there looking for.