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

I loved the sound of my tube gear.  I put up with the inefficiency, meaning the furnace-like heat.  I began to wear down, though, from the cost of re-tubing and once having to ship the amp back to the manufacturer for repair when a tube blew up.  But I finally decided to move to solid state when I realized how often I was not listening to my system.  I never turned it on unless I had an hour or more to listen...took a while for it to warm up and sound it’s best, and I was concerned about shortening tube life by switching on and off for short intervals.  Got a half hour before we leave the house?  Forget it, no music.  Want to hear that one song a couple times you’re trying to learn on the guitar?  Forget it, no music.

My solid state gear sounds great and I listen to it much more than my tube system.  Solid state fits my life better.

Having a SS amp as a backup puts the convenience back for me. 

+1 What decooney says.  On the nose!

Yes, on owning both type amps.

This may not *exactly* answer the question, but I thought it was relevant to the spirit of the conversation: I’ve used and owned dozens of different amplifiers (tube, ss, and hybrid) with a variety of speakers over the years. My primary speakers have (almost) always been Magnepans, though I’ve had plenty of cone/horn speakers to play with as well. I started out with solid state amps, tried tube amps, went back to ss, but have returned to tubes. *Some* tube amps have a looser bass response, and *some* ss amps are overly etched and coarse sounding. Maybe even *most*. But after trying different types of amplifiers with a variety of speakers (but primarily Maggies), I own only tube amps now. They (the ones I’ve kept, at least) just do something special handling the signal that is missing with the ss amps I’ve used. My current main amp is a Music Reference RM-200.. and honestly, my Maggies have never sounded better... So for ME, with my choices of music, at my chosen volume level, and my speakers.. I prefer tubes. The important qualification is *my music*, *my speakers*, etc. I don’t think this is something that one listener can answer for another. I just wanted to share my own journey and conclusion (for now, lol). There are going to be trade offs with every scenario, and one has to choose which combinations meet one’s own expectations. In my opinion, of course.