Tubes? Transistors? Which are better?

Interesting question. Transistors are very revealing and often sound harsh and non musical in my experience. Even if you can't hear it directly, there's something irritating and unnatural in the transistor sound a lot of the time. On the other hand tubes sound nice and musical but they soften the music and put in colouration. After trying a lot of transistor and tube gear I now how a Pass Aleph L preamp and a Pass Aleph 3 power amp. They combine the simpicity of tube design with the benefits of transistors, e.g. accuracy, dynamics. The sound is fantastic, no harshness at all but tons of detail and best of all you can feel the emotional content of the music is left intact. Try a Pass Aleph combination and get the best of both worlds. Good luck.

I had to make this decision recently as well. I listened to about a dozen tube and solid state amplifiers in my price range. I gradually realized that with the exception of the mccormack amp, I kept remembering the tube amplifiers as sounding good. They do sound different. The tubes will have a more musical sound, but solid state is (maybe ) more detailed, but definitely stronger in the bass. You might want to consider the type of music that you listen to. If you like rock and modern pop like metallica, madonna, G&R (am I dating my college years or what?), you might want to go with solid state. If you are into vocals, jazz, sparse instrumentals, you might be happier with tubes.

I think solid state sounds more detailed on initial listening, but after awhile, it seems that the details are just too forward. The details are still there with tubes, it's just that they aren't presented in an exaggarated fashion. I also find that tubes sound better on rock music because so many rock recordings are shrill sounding and can be unbearable with solid state and a bright CD player. I would like to hear other people's opinions on this point.

To Audionut: The right cables fix the problem of "details being too forward". To "Uliver": You have to decide for yourself. Which is better, MAKING YOUR OWN DECISIONS, or doing what others do FOR THE SAKE OF FOLLOWING THE HEARD? Or doing what your dealer says, because "he wouldn't possibly steer me wrong...and he just happens to have what he thinks I need in the store, so we'd be helping each other out..." heh heh heh...

Carl, the cables I used are the ones Dan D'Agostino highly recommends with his equipment. It's not the cables, Krell is very forward sounding.