Tubes vs Solid State - Imaging, Soundstaging, 3D


I have limited experience with tubes having had a couple tube amps with Gold Lion KT88s and EL34s. The majority of amps I have owned have been solid state. In my experience, SS always seems to image more sharply and offer the deepest, clearest field.

Is this common?
128x128michaelkingdom
"Techno babbalo obfuscaturo a mundo. El tubo harmonico supremo."

Eat Oreos. It'll all sound muy bien.
Few things are ever "universally" realized.

Does not make sense to me that such things would be ignored by the experts whose products can benefit.

Its all about the dollar. People often purchase audio gear with their eyes rather than their ears. Then once they are saddled with it they have to justify why so they can feel good about it. Its much easier to design with feedback than without. In the case of amplifiers, the use of feedback is common as it is part of a standard of how the speaker is driven. But the standard ignores human hearing/perceptual rules. I am sure many have seen this link before but here it is again:

http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php

In a nutshell the more your equipment obeys human hearing/perceptual rules the better it will sound, the involving it will be and the less likely that it will wind up in a closet or being resold. But if you are only interested in how good the equipment looks on paper you might think global NFB is a good thing.
"But if you are only interested in how good the equipment looks on paper you might think global NFB is a good thing. "

Its an old beaten topic, but actually I think most people, especially audiophiles, are more interested in how something sounds, not how it specs out on paper.

I suppose if its true we have all been brainwashed, or earwashed I suppose as it were (I could probably use on of those) we don't really know that most of our stuff does not sound as good as it might if we would just go with the gear that caters to our ears the best.
But having said that most afiles care more about the sound than the specs, if I hear something that sounds good but does not measure well ( to some reasonable reference standard that it probably should) a little question mark will likely go off in my head asking "why".