Tell me if i got it wrong..

Sorry, Mara..., try that again, please. And what is "ansable"?

Good post, onhwy. Totally agree. Tube amp output impedence/speaker load interactions that change frequency response are the greatest factor in ascribing tube amp tonal effects, no? Some of these can be grotesque, too, as when I tried a VAC Avatar on my Parsifal Encores. What a way to destroy a fine speaker! OTOH some systems need that soft-top, vivid-mid, bass-bump that can sometimes be acvieved benignly and therefore euphonically.
I prefer the transducers neat, however.

So is Class A SS (like Pass amps)the best of both worlds?

Hmmm...I thought most folks preferred the tubelike naturalness of the fully Class A Alephs over the more-efficient A-B X Series... well, at least I do.
What's an Aleph 6?...and 11% efficiency? Hardly. My Aleph 2 idle at 300watts, yet pump 100/8 and a very meaty 200 into 4 ohms. (Parsifal Encore woofers are 4s, so this is a great match!) Non-linear? Are you kidding? And really--tube amp distortion is "solely contributed by output transformers"? Hmm....

C'mon, Fatparrot! I grew up playing a Hammond B (a pre-synth?) for 10 years.
My mostly baroque experience may not have met your "soulful" requirements, but I hope Jimmy Smith, et al, don't read your post!

Asa, your well-crafted post is engaging but wildly built on
exagerrated, shaky "factoids". To relegate ss and tube camps to assigned cognition strata is patently absurd.
I first took your error in postulating "over-accuracy" with a grain of salt, believing that you were simply trying to metaphorically attach sound perception to the eye-brain's use of boundary recognition to "see" images more sharply. Most first or second year experimental psych students have done fun experiments in the lab explaining this. Colorists in art studios study this to death! So it may be the case that DISTORTIONS in signal reproduction, especially odd-order ones in the treble region, serve to similarly "highlight" transient (and therefore image? hmmm...) edges. But to throw the baby out with the bathwater by moving en masse to an amplification system that
may simply roll off the info, and/or NOT resolve transients as finely, hoping to thusly not "alert" the ear-brain into a kind of hyper-recognition of detail is an UNfortunate state...NOT one to be the goal of accurate (no such thing as hyper-accurate...c'mon, man!) AND satisfying musical reproduction systems. Lots of tube amps interact with speakers to pump up the glorious mids and soften the "ugly,
detail-laden highs" is another way of restating your premise? I'd rather leave the frequency response shaping to a GREAT speakermaker, and use neutral electronics and room treatment to acquire a satisfying experience.
Granted it costs more. It's EASY to get good sound with tubes CHEAP. Hell, I remember the utter coherence of those 5 tube radios of the 50s pumping a naked 4" full-range.
Those dudes had midrange honesty! Just be sure to roll the highs and make sure the FM response didn't have TOO good a signal to noise ratio, eh? The orignal cheap dither?!
OT3rdH, I use Pass Alephs. Tube sound (huh?) with ss bass, detail, and ultrareliability. So I guess I'm in your camp, too...somewhat. But Christ, man, let's cool it with the musicopsychobabble and try to look for REAL reasons for the elicitation of musical pleasure. I think PRAT is the big cahuna, followed by timbral accuracy (for me, as a pianist),
followed by lack of distortion (in all its guises).
I'll agree that tubes can provide decent PRAT, SOMETIMES timbral near-truth (depends on output impedence, speaker load, etc.), and generate lovely 2nd order harmonics (I used to play Hammond organ a lot as a kid...adding those 2nds and 4ths ALWAYS enriched the sound)... ear-brain again, while perhaps masking upper order and high freq crap that ss just allows through. So, for a reasonable price, you takes your pick:
somewhat rose-colored glasses OR a clear lens you have to clean a lot!
Thanks for the fun, Asa, and keep well. Ern
hyper-sensitivity to detail and data

Asa, Onhwy61.
Sorry, I only have a minute.
Asa, please don't be so defensive! Whereas my accusation may have seemed callous, it was simply a non-calculated quick response to your first conjectures re "tubes=pleasure" vs "ss=cognition", if you will.
I don't wish to engage in an overly-wrought series of argument cum counter-argument, but I notice, and struggle to understand, the migration (and evolution) of your thoughts as stated away from the earlier provocative, simplistic stabs that, through their conclusions, drew my
bow.
(On a more personal level I wish you'd refrain fom assuming that my knowledge base is gleaned from magazines rather than
empirical data. I know SOME of the whys of tube sound because I've measured them! Now, please, don't run with this! I don't at all believe that the finest human sense is sufficiently understood to be even a slight bit comprehended
objectively, let alone measured fully. (If science at this point could explain it all, then I don't believe "musical pleasure", as we experience it, could exist.)

So I appreciate your comments of late re musical "awareness"--its cognition, states of experience, or whatever. Your discourse so far illustrates your interest
in our collective quest for exploring the complex experiences involved in "music" and our
endeavors to reproduce these experiences at will in our homes.
In light of your profound intellectual investment re the understanding of experiential states and strata, your first simplistic (don't misunderstand, please!) comments
carving the "tubes vs. ss" poles seems somewhat beneath this sophisticated thinking.
I struggle to link your lingo to complex experiences I have
AS A MUSICIAN and (and sometimes, "vs.") a LISTENER, for example, to further understand YOUR postulated states of awareness, being, or whatever.
I had been playing baroque and liturgical acoustic and Hammond orgean for a decade before my adulthood, and now lose myself readily THROUGH the practiced cognitive exercises of reading and playing my Steinway as the modus operandi of arrival at truly satisfying musical experience.
Is it helpful that my "B" is in tune, or well-regulated, or that the neighbors' kids and lawnmowers are at a null?
Absolutely. When I listen to reproduced music it's helpful that my speaker-room-power paradigm is optimized, and that
the paltry 16bit software source is somehow "handled" 24/192, etc., into a form that "exercises" the ear-brain to
as many and deep levels of experience as possible.
But "tubes vs. ss"? Glad we're getting beyond that, Asa.
Gotta go help Ellen prep for dinner for 12 tomorrow.
Smuggled in some foies gras entiers, confit de canard, and amazing olives, yet she wants me to slice and toast eggplant slices into "chips" for the tapenades.
Yeah...pass the Poupon, hwy61!

Leave her out of this, Bry!

C'mon, Asa, you needn't pee in the sandbox....