Ligi, is your cigar a pleasing fequency response anomoly provided by your tube amp? Maybe it's just a great speaker/room/amp synergy that provides a spectral landscape you like. Perhaps a great ss amp with a different speaker could provide the same magical cigar? I tried supposedly-great VAC glass on my Parsifal Encores, and it absolutely slaughtered their carefully-honed neutrality! Glad my Alephs sound great AND allow these great speakers tocome alive in my room as their quite expert voicers intended.
This is not to mean that ss is better...just more predictable at the getgo. A high output impedence and a multi-driver cum passive crossover array is an exercise fraught with variability. If you get really lucky the world seems better, but I contend that it's a LOT easier to get there with a great speaker in a well-treated room and a NEUTRAL fine amp, and that led me to Pass Labs...and NO, they're not for sale! Let's all just enjoy the music...and continue to pass the cigar.
This is not to mean that ss is better...just more predictable at the getgo. A high output impedence and a multi-driver cum passive crossover array is an exercise fraught with variability. If you get really lucky the world seems better, but I contend that it's a LOT easier to get there with a great speaker in a well-treated room and a NEUTRAL fine amp, and that led me to Pass Labs...and NO, they're not for sale! Let's all just enjoy the music...and continue to pass the cigar.