Tube AMP or SS

Darkmobius, when you say "outperforming" do you mean quality, or apparent loudness? Certainly the factors you mention have alot to do with one amp outperforming another amp qualitatively, having little to do with watts.

I think MA is Monitor Audio. I have no idea if they have tube friendly impedances or not. As Unsound says, it is a matter of matching the amp to speaker and some work better with SS if they need current for low impedances. If your speaker is tube friendly- high and smooth impedance, then I think you would be surpassed how good acoustic jazz can sound with good tube amplifier - much more natural for my tastes.

In my experience watts may be watts, but the sound quite different coming out of a tube amp compared with SS - the may measure the same, and be the same in that sense, but they sound quite different driving speakers - an SS amp let's you know it is running out of steam in a much more obvious and unpleasant way.

Tubes do none of those things, but they certainly handle clipping differently,
and that is the difference that makes a difference, but I thought that was long
settled, uncontested and understood. It is not tube voodoo, they simply handle
overload differently, which allows you to play them at higher average watts
without confronting the clipping hash of SS.

By the way, Harley's article, "The Smaller Difference" in the December TAS is a
pretty interesting discussion on what could lead to the importance of listening
versus measuring, the subject versus the objective. A good read I, I think. I
think TAS is also doing a great job of examine and discussing computer based
audio - first rate stuff that is finally getting me to understand it.

DM, got it. Unsound, what drum would that be? Not recognizing the
current/voltage paradigms regarding speakers, or do you mean something else?
I do agree, you can buy a lot of SS watts to make up for SS clipping, and that is
indeed one strategy. And if you own speakers with wide impedance swings and
very low impedances in the bass regions, you would indeed be better served
with an SS amp, and a tube amp might not work very well at all, simply can't
provide the current. But assuming you have speakers suitable for tubes, you
know the requirements, it is clear that a tube amp will sound more powerful
than a similarly rated SS amp, which is why your strategy of buying more, and
cheaper, SS amps is a strategy one could use to overcome these differences
between "watts" - and needed.

Agreement feels better:)