Solid State vs. Tubes - What if Transistors came first?

Nothing to do with timing....   back when I was playing in a band - when tubes and transistors were in its transitional stage... we simply knew that tubes simply sounded better for music.

@mckinneymike—I'm curious, who/what/where are these new vacuum tube production facilities? The Noritaki "nutube" thing is just a restricted special purpose curiosity product of virtually no use in hi-end audio, the RCH Labs startup recently died in a bankruptcy auction, and the Western Electric reissue trial is a small, limited, insider-use effort.

The existing public vacuum tube suppliers are all marginal, unmonitored profiteers located in China, Russia, and other obscure ex-Soviet block satellites, and wholly dependent on the guitar amplifier and "tube audiophile" market. There's no other receiving-type vacuum tube usage anywhere in the world, for any purpose.

Where are those "new and modernizing tube manufacturing facilities" that you cite?

“Tubes suck.” -Lee Deforest, a deathbed epiphany. 

vtvmvodtm,

It is puzzling that all that you wrote somehow escapes the reality check among enthusiasts. Again, long live tubes, but on any scale they are virtually non-existent. As a poster, I forgot who it was, noted earlier...it is just plain economy.

Tubes are a niche product with some value for those who like them to the level of idolizing, but so is my manual transmission.