solid state vs tubes--with a twist

Orpheus I remember the N.E.W. amps, those little boxes from the 90's. They indeed were impressive and inexpensive but for sure I never believed for a second I was listening to anything other than a really decent ss amp.

Carver may be nutty, but he isn't crazy.
His M400t, which I had for 2+ decades was nice. Clean with good dynamics it drove my MG-1 panels very well, right up to clipping.

The method of making the amp match was to hook the Carver amp and the 'reference' amp to the same speaker. But out of phase, I guess. When the speaker produces NO sound, they are the same.....The louder the speaker, the further apart the amps sound. Bob would adjust internal parts values and bias, until this condition was met.

This applies to that specific amp pairing with a particular speaker. Other speakers and reference amps will differ. Carver chose a well known and highly regarded tube amp as his target.

With the above conditions, I'd remove the word 'allegedly'.

Have you reviewed any of Nelson Pass' First Watt offerings? I think you would be pleasantly surprised of the sound of several of the First Watt amplifiers. Specifically, the First Watt F3 and M2 are soild-state designs that IMHO sound the closest to the classic tube sound. The First Watt amps don't quite have the classic tube sound because they are low distortion and do not have the high amount of second harmonic distortion that many tube designs possess. For the past 11 years I have owned horn loudspeakers and have owned/demoed many tube and solid-state amplifiers. The First Watt offerings are my favorite solid-state designs.

Tubegroover, I think your confusing the N.E.W. 20.1 with the amp that Orpheus and I are talking about. The N.E.W. DCA-33 amp is battery powered and are NOT little boxes and they retailed at about $2000.00, the N.E.W 20.1 retailed for about $700.00 and I think that is the model that you remember. If you get a chance to hear one I think you would be pleasantly surprised!
Tish

If you go back about 10 years or more I would say yes. But now it seems like the trend is to get more resolution and detail-everything just seems to be getting brighter. To me this is a negative. For tube like sound I think the CJ solid state amps are a good bet. Some of the older integrated amps from England have a warm sound. The Creek 4330, Audio innovations Alto, and Magnum Audio are good examples. You can always go for a 1970's receiver.