Why did you lean one way or the other

+ several on tube preamp & SS amp. Love the NOS tube rolling on pre. 

I have been into audio for 45 years, the last 25 of those has been with mostly tube gear.   

Overall I have had great luck with minimal fuss.  I've had tube gear from vtl, cj, Sonic Frontiers , Anthem , Zesto ...  most of it has been great.   

In 2023 I wanted to set up a second system,   I had several pieces of gear displaced from my main rig.    A Vault 2i, REL sub, and a pre and amp.   

It was starting to take up too much room so I ended up ditching the tube gear and bought a Cyrus i7XR amp.   

It was such a great sounding amp I replaced my speakers and now have a system that is compact and sounds great.    One button to power up  instead of 10 boxes to turn on , this system gets a lot of use .   Makes no sense to power up a bunch of tube gear to listen for an hour or so.   

When I do have time to listen for an extended period I'll fire up the main rig .

Had several very good SS setups including Chord, Luxman, Sansui & Tandberg all with great success. The 1st piece of tube gear I bought on a flyer was a Sonic Frontiers SFL-1 and it was "on" with tubes for me from that day forward. I am today using a tube amp, preamp & DAC with my only SS piece being a Simaudio Moon phono stage. To me, the entire tube biasing, rolling & exotic tube hunting is all fun and keeps me engaged; like record shopping still does. I do prefer tubes and have used Aesthetix, Audiomat, Shindo, Line Magnetic, Canor among others & each time I move to a different tube piece has been a solid step up in most every way. Just my experience but not going back to SS anytime soon 

I just read the enjoyable thread on streamers with displays. It seemed there that most thought displays to have limited value. Despite ours being an auditory hobby, there are, however, valuable visual elements. Enjoying what @soix referred to as "baubles on a bull" is a lovely facet of hifi pleasure. In addition to their sonic characteristics and how they appeal to the ears of one afficianado or another, tubes may also have a visual appeal, glowing like ... something on a bull or his mate, and letting us regress in a psychoanalytic fashion to the oral stage of development in which we enjoyed bliss at our mother's breast. (Hoping not to be banned from Audiogon for comparing tubes to Freud's cigars.)

I have had almost any possible combination of SS & tube gear over the past 30 years.

In the 90's all tube stuff. Audio Note (UK) 1 and Sonic Frontiers DACs,  CAT SL1 and Audible Illusions Pre, MV52 , VAC 85/85, Ren 30/30 and 70/70 amps.

My first SS device was the Esoteric X-03SE CD player.  In terms of resolution this was an ear opener, there was a level of detail and transient response that the Theta Data & older tubed DACs could not find.  DAC technology was, of course progressing rapidly.

After retiring to VT in 2014 I simplified life to one system only, the VPI Scoutmaster with Koetsu Black,  X-03, CAT SL 1, VAC Ren 30/30, Audio Physic Virgo II.  Everything else was gifted or sold except for the 70/70.

The CAT then started playing up and the repair cost was estimated at a 5 figure sum.  I switched to the Sutherland Duo, and a passive pre amp feeding the 30/30.  So a hybrid setup.

This setup revealed more from the vinyl and digital sources.  The SL 1 sounded wonderful, but, with hindsight it seems it edited the sound.

I then had the opportunity to get an (NOS) Esoteric K-01XS for a great price and gave the X-03 to an impecunious friend.  At about this time I read reviews of the Benchmark LA4 and have used that ever since.  Another level of purity and space to the sound was achieved.

Then the 30/30 started making ugly noises and to this day I have been unable to get VAC to agree to service it, I was also getting tired of retubing every few years and even though I had just installed a quartet of WE 300Bs I installed a Pass Labs XA 25.

I also added an Aurender N100SC digital front end.

Now I am 100% SS, and very happy with the sound.  Somewhere in this saga, I forget when, I had replaced the Virgos with the Atria IIs.

Then I got an email advertising a deal on the (standard) Elekit TU-8900 kit.  Fun, lets have a go.  I had the WE 300Bs so just needed the ECC82s.  

I switched the XA 25 for the SET amp.  Wow, so that is what it's about!

I was clearly giving up on a level of resolution but there was an organic integrity to the sound.

Then I got an offer on a TU-8600 with the Lundahl upgrades.  Another level up, so I decided to upgrade the 8900 with Lundahls and high end coupling caps, and to try 2A3s. This recovered much the resolution and space.

More Wow.  I moved the 8600 to my 2nd system which is DMP A8 digital, TU 8600 amp, Harbeth P3ESRs.  And the upgraded 8900 is now my main amp.  

That amp now has NOS Brimar amp/drivers and RCA Black Plate 2A3s (or, sometimes WE 300Bs).

I have wandered on through my journey but at this time I am finding a hybrid system.  SS up front and an SET Tube power amp gives me the sound quality that I am looking for.