Everyone is going to kill me but I believe that tubes can create tone that no solidstate device can achive ever!. Likewise, solidstate can do some things better than tubes. It's a tradeoff. I am totally into the tube sound if the equipment in question is the most musical/emotional available for the price. I think ALL tube cd players and preamps have limitations that do not allow them to reach the pinacle of what is possable today. These two components, with tubes of any kind, have limited dynamics and a loss of leading edge transients that make the music lose energy and to sound soft. This is unaviodable!! and unacceptable if you want all of the music to pass through intact. And I also believe that solid state amps of the non digital kind can not keep up with SET technology ever. This area is the biggest gap in all of audio. Single Ended Triode/no feedback etc. tech. is so far superior to the big SS. monster amps that it is hard to believe when listened to side by side. Digital amps have solved this problem but have only one drawback, TONE. If you can live without the ultimate in tone, then a all solid state system with digital amps or single ended low power solid state amps is the way to go ala the reasoning similar to what 47 labs promotes or placette or Final Labs. If you value tone in the ultimate, then SET amps with solidstate pre and cd are the way to go. I know this is backwards to conventional thinking (most would have a tube cd/pre and solid state amp) but the future is going to change this thinking I believe and an example is Audiopax which has SET amps and Solid state preamp allready! Check out Dr. Gizmo's site for an indepth discussion on why tube pre's are soft. These statements are for the cutting edge best of the best range. AT the other end of the spectrum, in the entry level world, tubes rule!!! Let the flogging begin.
Tubes v. SS: can you mix and match?
Gentlepeoples - I was under the impression that a tube pre was always mated to a tube amp. Likewise, a SS pre would be mated to a SS amp. Of course, different makes and models of pres and amps could be mated, but I thought tubes should stick with tubes and SS should stick with SS, and never the two should meet. But this doesn't always appear to be the case with some of you. So, when and how are tubes mated with SS? Is it just a question of what sounds good? Are there any parameters at all?