What year did tube lose to SS


There was a major paradigm shift when CD became the media of choice I think it happened in 1982. All of sudden I went to the recprd stores and found CDs instead.
Similarly although I was too young to remember first hand, there had to be a year that saw the golden era of HI FI all tubed mostly stereo gave way to Transistor or Solid State. Please take a guess. I have no statistic but I think it was 1964. Was that The year when more SS amps were produced than tubed amps?
mechans

Showing 1 response by ejr1953

Decades ago I worked in sales at a high end audio dealer in DC.  I'll never forget how the B&W folks who visited were "concerned" over how dull their flagship model sounded in our showroom, drove all over DC to find replacements for the power amp tubes (can't remember which amp), once replaced, the speakers sounded awesome!

With that in mind, I've shied away from tubes....until a few months ago.  Some of my audio buddies worked on me to consider getting a tube preamp, letting me know that in low power applications, tubes would last a long time.

I replaced my solid state preamp with a tube unit and immediately enjoyed a more musical "bloom", especially in acoustic piano.  Now that I've swapped out the original equipment tubes for better models from Russia, this preamp just sounds awesome!