Ya know it's all really about what you listen for, the tone that makes you happy, and the % of what you're listening to. There's little doubt that tubes will throw up a sound stage that is simply amazing for considerably less than their solid state compadres. They also offer a warm slightly viscous presentation, you know that "liquid" term that everyone likes to throw around. Some folks find this pleasing and involving while others consider it colored. What's hard to do with tube amplifiers at lower price points is present the bass as effectively as we would like in many cases. What's interesting to me though is that this is kind of the perspective we get with audience concert recordings anyway. As a whole most engineers don't tame this beast at the shows and we end up with this type of sound at the concerts we attend, especially the rock shows. For the bluegrass or orchestral recordings... not so much. So what is bothersome for the folks trying to get absolute resolution in the low end for studio works or more audiophile oriented recordings seems to be only a shade of a color for our two channel PA reproductions. The lines are being blurred a bit as folks change up technologies, introduce hybrids, start working with bit stream amplification etc... but this seems to be a general rule for the difference.
Personally... I love it, I haven't had the $$ to invest in the type of rig I would like simply because I enjoy listening at very loud levels, I've had to stay with bang/$$ solid state gear. To me it's like the difference between listening to George or Mikey... we know who the tube guy is there.
It's not that dramatic but you get the point. Is it OK to fuzzy the edges to get a feel that there's really no other way to produce. What I would really like to put together would be Source->Crossover->Mid-Highs to Tube and Low end to Separate solid state stereo amp. Take the best of both worlds.
As always in the end... YMMV, take a spin and see how your neurons behave. Pick up a nice piece of used gear that you know keeps it's resale value and stays a bit in demand, try it out, if you start smiling really big keep it, if not... offload it with little or no loss outside of shipping.
to get the watts you want for the $$ you wish to spend.
Yeah, that's what holding me back. Is it worth it to go Tube for that much more money???
T
Topic: Stay SS or go Tube??? (Read 7324 times)