A tubes vs. Solid State question.

Judit; I just threaded into the quicksilver ls review-It explains my current pre situation.
Besides budget pre's, I haven't really checked out pre's too much. I have never really been a fan of pre's because to me it always seemed like a lot of money to spend on something that is only going to degrade the sound. (I can buy a volume and put it anywhere I want, you know.) I am currently a man without a real power amp, and no dough, so I gotta use what's around the house (a luxman). I got the pre when I tried out some pse studio V's, and found that the input was such that they seemed to need a pre, so I borrowed the quicksilver, and it found a home and the pse's went back.
I remain ready for my christmas check, and enough versatility to try any power amp I might run into to drive a pair of vandy 2ci's, with any length of ic, passive or active. Then, I will decide on whether or not I evan want a pre, or if ss or tube.
Thing is, when it comes to cheaper equipment, I can't stand the distortions caused by tubes, where I can live with the distortions caused by ss. Dynaco's, old marantz, and sorry guys, McIntosh, don't cut it for me. (notice i DID capitalize Mac.) I much prefer older rotel, I'm living comfortably with the luxman, parasound, and the like. But note that these are in the bargain catagory, with of coarse less perfection. Most of the systems that I have heard that stand out in my memory have been tube, so I'm going to aim higher and give it a try.
I have lots of experience with tubes in my guitar amps, being of audiophile sickness, so I am pretty familiar with different tones and distortions associated with tubes. SS in that realm I don't like, and I'm not just being a typical "hip" guitar player. I find ss fatiguing, evan hybrids, and those that I would consider good sounding. In the stereo world, less fatiguing seems to be a buzz phrase for tubes, so perhaps I will discover something to that.

Nrchy, it is fairly easy to make tubes sound good and costs like Hell in time, effort and expense to make solid state perform worth a darned.....Other than the transconductance amplifier Audible Illusions came up with over a decade ago there is really not much new in tube or linear solid state design....I find it a challenge to build something that sounds like and measures spectrally like a triode using a solid state design.....

cheers guys...i am female audiophile! yep, there are not too many of us around here. i have an ARC preamp with Pathos power amps...best of both SS and tube world, i feel.

Clueless,
Takes a bold person to put lacquer on components in
a SS device that costs many $K.

I still haven't gone back to tubes, but the Klyne pre-amp which replaced the Krell a couple of years ago has more of a tube sound than SS. Does that count for anything?