solid state vs tubes

I would imagine the amps are not the primary bottlenecks to recorded music sounding real, and no amount of progress in the amp arena is going to make a big difference in that direction. That is ok though, I can't listen to Coltrane at the club down the block.

Agree with Magfan and Mapman 100%. Choose the speaker you love, that will (ought to) guide you to the best amp for you, SS or tubes. Be careful of equipment reviews or opionions outside of system context, it makes all the difference.

"Choose the one you like and be happy." Well, that makes perfect sense. Unfortunately when a compulsive necessity to have "the best" turns into obsession, we don't always make sense and then next thing you know the music is secondary to the equipment and the merry-go-round keeps spinning.....

I have to agree with Phaelon and Tvad that to meet what I find to be tube virtues, it is essential that they be in the amp, upstream tubes with SS amps is simply not the same thing, that took a long time to figure out, especially given what seems to a fairly long run recomendation of combing tubes in the pre with SS amp - a best of both worlds argument - that simply never worked that why for me. Which is not to say which is better, that might very well be a matter that can only be decided by personal preference after listening for yourself, but IF you want what is best from "tubes", I think there is no way around them being in your amps.

I think Nelson Pass chose SS because he felt there were already alot of really good sounding tube amps, the trick was to get SS to sound good and he wanted to take on the challenge - don't know whether his stuff sounds tubelike or not, though he often describes the ways in which his circuits are similar to tubes in their simplicity compared with other SS designs. Mrtennis, I have no idea if there will ever be a time when you can detect the difference between SS and tubes, too subjective (yours) to know, but it does seem that there are at least some audiophiles that would be hard pressed to detect the difference and know which was which.

Tmsorosk, I agree we want equipment to sound as much like real unamplified, acoustic instruments as possible (don't think amplified, electronic instruments have a real reference). Now if tubes happen (for arguments sake)to reproduce sound that has properties closer to unamplified, acoustic instruments in a real space compared to SS generally, then an SS that could be indistinguishable from a tube amps in those properties that make tube amps sound better, than I might very well want an SS amp like that, not becuase I care about the technology used, but all things being equal it does seem easier to own an SS amp, even if you have to give up the "joys" of tube rolling to alter the sonic signature of the amp - though even there, I tend to think a tube amp sounds like its circuit design far more than whatever tubes you happen to use. It seems that Nelson Pass, for one, has always tried to make SS amps that can perform like tube amps, which he decided not to make since he felt there were already alot of good tube amps out there and preferred the challenge of making good sounding SS (not that I know him, he sort of says things in his various amp manuals from the Aleph and XA.5 series). They certainly are excellent amps, are they indistinguisable from tube amps? Well, there are alot of Pass/First Watt owners out there that might be able to add their 2 cents on that....

Tvad, I had the Aleph 2,3,J and XA30.5 - I no longer have any of them, but three tube amps; I really did want to have an SS amp, so I tried some of the "best" - but with my speakers.....

Harbeth seems to be as fasinable with SS as tubes, whereas my speakers are proabably 98% tube users.