Tubes Through Solid State

I have an ARC tube Ref3 with 2 Simaudio solid state Moon W6's mono blocks. The sound stage is open, wide & deep. The instruments have plenty of space and sound 3d. The speakers sound very relaxed without any strained. I have owned many tube amps and feel SS amp have better bottom end, extension and decay than most of the tube amps I have owned or tried. These two componants compliment each other very well.
I have tried SS preamps with tube amps and did not like it. The only exception was when I used a Pass P preamp with a tube amp. the output gain was too much and I could not set the volume higher than around 4. Thats with all the jumper set to the lowest settings in the Pass P.
BTW my speaker are 96% efficient so power is not the reason I like the mix of tube & SS. I just like the sound.

sm2727 you may or may not like the mix but give it a try. Audition them in your house with your speakers. Thats the only way you will know if it works for you. Not someone elses rant about it not.

The other nice thing is it does not cost an arm and a leg to retube a preamp as it does with an amp with comparable watts.

Well, if I want to try a mix one day I will probably get hybrids.
And what about phono stage? SS with the rest of the chain tube or the other way around? Or midway? Any experience with that?

Dan ed, I have all Tom Evans electronics. SS phono stage and pre and tube monoblock amps. He, as a high end designer and manufacture certainly favors mixing the two. And I certainly appreciates his work.

03-23-11: Sm2727
Thank-you all for your responses. I just didn't want to pay for tubes in the front end only to find that those tube qualities I am after don't survive the the solid state translation.

I just replaced a SS phono stage with a tubed (Jolida) one in my otherwise SS signal chain and the difference was immediately noticeable. How noticeable such a change would be would also depend on the low level resolution of the downstream components. A mid-'80s Adcom is going to obscure more of the tubes' traits than a Class A Nelson Pass, Krell, or Classe', or even an A/B amp heavily biased into class A.

I may replace my SS line stage with a tubed one but I'll probably keep my SS amp for the control and stability it exerts over my speakers.

Just out of curiosity, anyone mixed Rowland and Lamm?