Tell me if i got it wrong..

Accuracy and musicality are not mutually exclusive experiences, but over-accuracy - assuming we define it as added detail to the source sound projection - can diminish "musicality".

This happens because the objective mind, the listening mind, has an evolutionary predisposition to "look" towards objects by defining them against a background (hence, our objective audio language using visual terms). You see (forgive the pun), "musicality" is not something that happens "out there" but is an event between your mind and the musical wave that carries musical information, or message (musicality describes a dynamic of listening consciousness). The deeper you go in listening, the more you transcend your predisposition to objectify the sound wave. If you are a person who is highly attached to his/her objectifying cognitive faculties, then you do not fall deeper into the music because you stay at the the more superficial levels of listening. At those levels, where you focus on the sound as an object, you then, by operation, discount those experiences of music that do not predomonantly deal with your accurate sound-object; you reduce the importance of space, which you will note is not objectifiable. It is no coincidence that those minds who favor accuracy and detail of the singer are the same minds that gravitate towards SS and decry tubes.

Why? Because SS designs relegate the importance of space in favor of greater defining detail in the sound-object. Importantly, as you seep deeper into the music, your intuitive abilties to discern spatial incongruencies increases and tubes excel at spatial rendition at deeper listening levels (also, in deepening levels, sensitivity to detail insufficiencies become less important, which is nwhy tubes guys can sit down to listen to their stereos and objectively note detail "insufficiencies relative to SS gear, but, for some reason, once they are deep into the music, it doesn't seem to matter).

I hope we eventually find mechanical, design-based explanations to definitively desribe these differences in perception as they relate to the gear, but it really doesn't matter. They -tubes and SS- are, as all technological devices, are simply different rearrangements of matter, so it is itself irrational to favor one arrangement over another in a vacuum from the results that they produce. It doesn't matter what given rearrangement produces what result if the results are different; taste is in the tasting.

Last, we will never end this argument of tube vs. SS because we have two minds that are speaking from two different levels of musical perceptibility. Knowledge of deeper levels is state-specific, meaning that its experience can not be described to those attached to shallower levels because those attached minds literally believe that their detailed level is the only one existant and they are unable to conduct the experiment in their own minds because this would mean letting go of their attachment to objectifying cognition. (Which is also why "smart" people who are real good at accumulating objects in our culture many times have musically sterile systems, predominantly SS-based).

Put that in your empiric pipe and smoke it.

Asa, your well-crafted post is engaging but wildly built on
exagerrated, shaky "factoids". To relegate ss and tube camps to assigned cognition strata is patently absurd.
I first took your error in postulating "over-accuracy" with a grain of salt, believing that you were simply trying to metaphorically attach sound perception to the eye-brain's use of boundary recognition to "see" images more sharply. Most first or second year experimental psych students have done fun experiments in the lab explaining this. Colorists in art studios study this to death! So it may be the case that DISTORTIONS in signal reproduction, especially odd-order ones in the treble region, serve to similarly "highlight" transient (and therefore image? hmmm...) edges. But to throw the baby out with the bathwater by moving en masse to an amplification system that
may simply roll off the info, and/or NOT resolve transients as finely, hoping to thusly not "alert" the ear-brain into a kind of hyper-recognition of detail is an UNfortunate state...NOT one to be the goal of accurate (no such thing as hyper-accurate...c'mon, man!) AND satisfying musical reproduction systems. Lots of tube amps interact with speakers to pump up the glorious mids and soften the "ugly,
detail-laden highs" is another way of restating your premise? I'd rather leave the frequency response shaping to a GREAT speakermaker, and use neutral electronics and room treatment to acquire a satisfying experience.
Granted it costs more. It's EASY to get good sound with tubes CHEAP. Hell, I remember the utter coherence of those 5 tube radios of the 50s pumping a naked 4" full-range.
Those dudes had midrange honesty! Just be sure to roll the highs and make sure the FM response didn't have TOO good a signal to noise ratio, eh? The orignal cheap dither?!
OT3rdH, I use Pass Alephs. Tube sound (huh?) with ss bass, detail, and ultrareliability. So I guess I'm in your camp, too...somewhat. But Christ, man, let's cool it with the musicopsychobabble and try to look for REAL reasons for the elicitation of musical pleasure. I think PRAT is the big cahuna, followed by timbral accuracy (for me, as a pianist),
followed by lack of distortion (in all its guises).
I'll agree that tubes can provide decent PRAT, SOMETIMES timbral near-truth (depends on output impedence, speaker load, etc.), and generate lovely 2nd order harmonics (I used to play Hammond organ a lot as a kid...adding those 2nds and 4ths ALWAYS enriched the sound)... ear-brain again, while perhaps masking upper order and high freq crap that ss just allows through. So, for a reasonable price, you takes your pick:
somewhat rose-colored glasses OR a clear lens you have to clean a lot!
Thanks for the fun, Asa, and keep well. Ern
hyper-sensitivity to detail and data

euh mmmm...
i didn't understand nothing..thanhks to my great english :p

can't an SS amp sound exactly like a tube amp if tuned to ?
is the sound difference really related to the major composants or is it more related to the way it is build
and how the engineer thought about it ?

i mean..do all tube amps sounds the same ?
like the base sound.. compared to all SS the same too ?

Subaruguru, thank you for your response. Yes, you are wrong: my position on a cognitive attachment to accuracy did not imply, per se, or any other way, an acceptance of "overly-rolled" components. Most people who are attached to accuracy respond to a disclosure of its limitations by attacking what they perceive as its opposite argument, ie its either rolled or accurate, a limited departure for dialogue that the magazines have taught you.

On a content level, I'm confused because you attack content but offer no counter arguments. To wit: you say that my position is "patently absurd", assumably meaning that it is easily deconstructed, but you provide no contra-arguments, not even once saying why such a theory is flawed. Similarly, you histrionically say that my argument is "exagerated" and based on "shaky factiods", but you never say WHY that is the case nor cite which "factiods" you are taking about. In other words, dialogue is considered authentic when a person responds in an authentic way - with reference and argument.

Its not just about distortion - thats what accuracy attached people think and their quest for lesser distortion (read: mechanical artifacts in the sound-object) is symptomatic of that same attachment. Distortive images and non-distortive images can both attract the visualizing mind; it is the relationship between the object and space which was my argument, and which again you failed to address (other than some vague references to aesthetic theory [far beyond "colorists in art studio", whoever they are...] or supercial psych theory, which you again don't specify. What theories are you talking about and how do they elucidate your arguments - such as they are - and how do they relate to mine?

Which brings me to the words. Yea, I like "Big Cahuna", and yes, bigger words are an easy target in a venue where many people come only for entertainment, but here's my question: How can you patronize what I've said with off-handed remarks about entry-level psych, as if I should know and you do (and, therefore, you are sophisticated enough to understand them, assumably), and then complain about my use of those terms. In other words, if you are so erudite in their use and application, then why are you troubled by my use of them? Like your emotionally-pointed arguments that are not arguments, this seems disingenuous.

If you want to step up to the plate, then please, don't look to the grandstands for support while you evade an argument. Everyone wants to be a rock star...

Asa, please help me understand some of your above comments.

1. What is musicality as it relates to equipment. Give an example of a accurate, but non- musical piece of equipment. I always thought that if it's accurate, then it also really should be musical.

2. If accuracy and musicality are not mutually exclusive, then are they really in opposition? You seem to imply that they still are. If that's the case, would not a component that was "under-accurate", as opposed to your over-accurate, then qualify as musical?

3. Please define the phrase "objective mind" and explain why a "listening mind" is an objective mind. While you're at it you could also explain what is a "listening mind".

4. Is being highly attached to ones objectifying cognitive faculties a genetic fault or is it a learned behavoir?

I have more question, but I gots to go. I have to go down into the hotel lobby and be seen waiting for my limo.