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Can tubes ever be as quiet Solid State

Recently I have had a major frame shift in my view regarding new production tubes which are getting to be pretty darned good over old tubes which still have marvelous sonic attributes but are often plagued by unwanted noises.This has resulted in my preferring certain current production over old stock more and more.
My question isn't are older tubes even NOS better than new production rather the question is are any tube systems able to match the noise floor of the quieter solid state amps? I was thinking in particular of gain stages in a phono stage. Opinions please
mechans

Showing 1 response by vicdamone

vicdamone
850 posts
 
After all these years I've come to a love/hate relationship with tubes. My tubes now reside in the output stages of my front end gear, DAC and tuner. I gave up on the tube phono stages.

I still own a tube amplifier that gets use from time to time or more accurately less and less more out of it's inconvenience than anything else (it must be turned on and off). Pathetic, no?

Vic
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