For anyone who moved from tubes to solid state — a question

In my experience it’s all about matching the amp and speakers. When I was running Spendor D7’s and moved from a Cary tube amp to a Pass XA30.8 SS amp (with actually less watts) I realized a substantially better bass foundation, articulation, and slam.

I later made a speaker change to Devore O/96’s which are exceptionally easily to drive. I acquired a Line Magnetic 805ia SET tube amp to try with the O/96’s and the sonic improvement was astounding compared to the Pass, including the bass, as well an overall rich sound with incredible detail and beautiful nuance.

So I don’t think bright lines can always be applied comparing SS to tube amps - it’s about component matching.

In my experience it’s all about matching the amp and speakers.

^^ This!
If your speaker is of reasonable impedance in the bass (8 ohms or higher) then its no worries making bass. Some tube amps (like SETs) do have trouble making bass impact due to phase shift in the lower octave. But if the amp has the bandwidth to prevent that then bass impact is no worries.

Many solid state amps actually overdamp the loudspeaker, as amplifier technology in terms of acting as a voltage source has far outstripped loudspeaker technology in this regard- no speaker ever made needs more than 20:1 damping factor, yet there have been solid state amps with damping factors of 1000:1. Overdamped speakers tend to have a coloration often called 'tight bass'; no such thing seems to exist in real life. But audiophiles often point to tight bass as a good thing, even though its pretty obvious its an artifact and not neutral.

There are a few good hybrid power amplifiers out there.

@atmasphere
I always learn from your posts! As I mention to three_easy below, I'm hoping for folks to compare:

well matched amplification and speaker -- with TUBES
vs.
well matched amplification and speaker -- with SOLID STATE

If other factors are responsible for a sonic difference, then I do not have an answer to my question.

@three_easypayments said:

So I don’t think bright lines can always be applied comparing SS to tube amps - it’s about component matching.

Right -- this is not that question or inquiry. That question leads to interminable debates about "tubes vs. solid state."

My question is very specific, and it’s intended for anyone who has kept all of the variables the same except for a change of either or both tube preamp/amp to solid state for sonic reasons.

Perhaps this question is so specific it doesn’t really open a door to that many people, but given how much people swap things in and out of their systems, I thought maybe someone had had this experience.

My only case like that was when I had both a tube and SS DAC from the same vendor at the same time for comparison, a relatively simple case.

I had the tube DAC first and found it responded to rolling tubes but no 1 tube checked all the boxes. So I also acquired the SS DAC.

I found the SS DAC was the best overall and was I was rolling tubes in the tube DAC to get it to sound like the SS DAC. So I dumped the tube DAC.

That was a few years back. I am still running the mhdt Constantine DAC in my system.

Here is a review I used for reference at the time covering the two:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0406/mhdt_laboratory_dac.htm

The differences between tube and SS amps are quite more substantial all things considered, especially when it comes to a tube amp needed to drive harder load speakers to their max. You have to take it all into consideration.

Only tubes in my system currently is ARC sp16 pre-amp with phono stage. Will be looking at going tubeless when the time comes to replace that if I can.