Tube Vs. SS Preamps

I like Macs most of them.. I love the older C11,20,22 or the MX110z they are all  wonderful when restored or not, depends.. I really like some of the SS pres . C45, MX120, 121, and 150. I like my C2500 too, what a nice preamp.. Macs are simple to please. Use Telefunken valves in their preamps.. If you do work on the units stay away from yellow polly cap rebuilds.. They were built with PIO, rebuild with PIO.. LEAVE the Black Beauties..

Regards

As others have described above, I find tube to offer sound with better texture, saturated harmonics and a presentation that seems to bloom naturally into the listening space.  I think good solid state can sound smooth, natural and lacking in artificial edginess, but, I tend to find something missing that makes the sound seem flat and less engaging.  I own a pretty decent solid state linestage (Levinson No. 32) but, I prefer my custom-built tube linestage (310 tube).  

While you may get a "taste" of tube sound with a tube linestage, I think the electronic component that has the biggest impact is the amplifier.  The right tube amplifier will make a huge difference (the wrong one likewise will sound quite bad).  It is harder to find the amp that will mate well with a particular speaker than it is to match any other components, but,  that is, to me, the big step in improving one's system.

In one of the old Vacuum Tube Valley magazines I remember reading an article about the supposed advantages of tubes vs solid state audio. Among several listed reasons for tube gear "sounding" better was that tubes emphasize even order harmonics, whereas solid state emphasizes odd order harmonics. 

My experience is the sound is different.

My initial systems were entry level SS and I acquired McIntosh C2600 tube preamplifier - it was a dramatic improvement.  Using an analogy the music was clearer - I could easily hear specific instruments in the context of the song and had a better sound stage of where the musicians were playing.

I've also heard very good SS preamps.  I recently auditioned one as I consider upgrading and evaluating a pure linestage preamp with separate phono stage.

Listening side by side to a series of songs, the sound was different from the McIntosh and to my ears it was 'clearer' and frankly my first concern was would the sound be irrating so I played some songs where there could be harshness.

Ultimately, I think the difference is the audible nature of distortion.  SS can have much less distortion and a whether tube or SS a well designed tube preamp uses the distortion within its sound singature. 

You are asking the wrong question.  What tubes offer that SS cannot compete with is space.  You hear a soundstage where vocals and instruments have their own space.  While this is a generalization, that is the difference between many reference level comparisons.  While some like the 6H30 tube sound, to me it sounds SSish so in my experience, then just get a SS components.  The real question is what are you looking for from your system and in what price range.

Once you know what you are looking for then you need to audition them.  Take your time and enjoy the search.

Happy Listening.