Here's an hypothesis. The sound of acoustic instruments is nearly unknown to most people. Rarely do we ever hear instrumental music, and especially vocal music, without amplification. To make matters worse, most of the time we hear music through mediocre to poor PA systems at higher than natural SPLs, and often ridden with distortion. When we actually hear clean, clear, low distortion music, it's such an anomaly that it doesn't quite "sound right." The shock to our ears has us longing for a more "natural" sound, not too much, not too little, but just the right amount of distortion. The Goldilocks sound of tubes and LPs.
can a tube-o-phile be happy with ss?
I switched to tubes over a decade ago, after realizing that I no longer listened to the stereo because it did not sound like real music and ss and digital were irritating, on a subconscious level. Went to all tubes and mostly LP's. It worked. I even prefer triode with no negative feedback settings, usually. Now ss has supposedly improved, and its advantages beckon, e.g., less heat, electricity and trouble, better bass and perhaps more detail and clarity. Have any of you voluntarily gone back to the dark side and been content? (with the understanding that it never really ends, for an audiophile). On an unlimited budget one might have few complaints, but this question is necessarily in the context of a semblance of fiscal sanity, not top of the line Boulder, Ayre or Zanden.