Two Paths to Musical Truth: The Case for Both Solid-State and Tube Phono Stages

I have a Leica with a few lenses, a Nikon(s) with most lenses they make and a Fuji (s) with most of the lenses they make. They all take great photos, but the Leica (note it is an M10) is the best for carefully crafted photos and emotional convenience, it wins hands down if I could only have one camera, the Nikon is fantastic for fast - incredibly detailed photos, but is heavy, and the Fuji I take when traveling because of its flexibility and small size. 

I use my iPhone 16 constantly. I can do micro photography with it that I used to only be able to do with a Nikon D800 and a Macro lens with three rim mounted lens flashes! I can’t believe how good it has gotten. I didn’t think it could get much better than the iPhone 15... but it was. I get my iPhone 17 next week. I can’t wait. 

@atmasphere Thank you for the time you spent describing how harmonics effect perceived sound quality in a manner so easily understood by novice layperson like I.   Most articles I have read only address low order and high order harmonics.  I will do more research based on your response.  

I use both solid state and tube phono stages.  I have a John Curl Vendetta SCP2-D in my main system and a Conrad Johnson Premier 15 phono in another.  I have no problem going back and forth between them.

I was resisting this "mine is bigger than yours" exchange, but what the heck. I own two phono stages that I regularly compare on the same system, both balanced from input to output, both with very high phono gain. One is Raul’s 3160 Phonolinepreamp. The other is Atmasphere’s MP1 (albeit slightly modified by me). The 3160 is unequivocally the best sounding SS phono stage I have ever heard, which is to say it is devoid of colorations I immediately notice when listening to other SS phonos. And my MP1 is just as good, and there is very little difference in the sonic characters of these two devices, which leads me to say what I said; as designs improve, they all ought to converge at a common endpoint of neutrality and clarity with wide bandwidth.  I would not dare say that these two phono stages are there yet, but close enough to make me happy with either. I think a key to excellence is balanced design and excellence in power supply design. I also own three other very good phono stages, one hybrid (Steelhead) and two tube types (Silvaweld SWH550 highly modified and Quicksilver full function preamp of the early 90s, also modified just a bit). The Steelhead exclusively drives the Beveridge system in my basement.  The Silvaweld is used only for high output cartridges in my main system, because neither the MP1 nor the 3160 provide for high output. So the Silvaweld gets connected to the linestage section of either the 3160 or the MP1.