Tube Amp Suggestions

I am glad you are happy. I saw a guy once picking his nose and eating the booger. He was very content. I did not care to watch it, but I had no anamosity or resentment for the fellow, you know what I mean.

You listen to your tubes, I will listen to the music.

BTW, it is by listening that I discerned the more live like sonics of the amps with no distortion. Especially with transparent speakers laborously set up to get the most out them.

That is how I knew. At first I took a chance on the logic, and reasonableness of the science, i.e., the specs. That distoriton can be measured. That to the degree it is present in the system, it will interfer with what the music is that artists made in real life. At least as well as it got produced and engineered onto the recording.

Not much we can do about their end, except become intelligently discerning about the choices we make on what to support with our purchases.

But then again, if you have sufficient distortion in your system, however much you may be enjoying it, you will not hear how poor the recording is, so it will make no difference to you. That is the unacknowledged point, is it not.

Yes, I do not go over well with the 'connoisseurs of coloration'. My perspective is a pin that pops their 'preference-for-a-specific-distortion-chracteristics' bubble.

So they rant, shoot at the messenger as it were, instead of cry, and kick themselves for being so gullible, and begin listening for 'live' like sonics instead.

I uderstand. The hardest thing for a man to do is admit he is wrong. But a 'man' does, and has a happy wife. Boys do not, and their marriages are in trouble.

it sounds a bit extreme to me to say that tube-lovers are "boys" and "their marriages are in trouble." comments like this are childish and don't show you to a "man" as you proclaim. until recently, i was a diehard solid state fan as well (owned acurus amps, aragon amps, and most recently, a plinius sa-102) but i switched to tubes because i preferred the way the music sounded to me. you prefer the way the music sounds to you with solid state. no biggie. i can identify. to come on this forum and bash tube users because tube amps have higher distortion doesn't make sense. what the hell does it matter as long as we are both happy? i enjoy my setup. i'm certain you enjoy yours. there is no right or wrong....only what you enjoy.

Didactically, you are pretty emotionally involved in a debate that many, like myself, didn't even realize was still an issue with anyone.

As for your perspective, it is more like a sledge hammer missing its mark than a pin popping anyone's preferences. I did enjoy your last analogy, but don't see it as being applicable in any sense.

I think tubes are great. It is distortion that I do not like. It interfers with the music, which is what I prefer to hear rather than the system. (The 'connoissers of coloration' nothwithstanding :-)

For some reason fewer tube amps are made with distorion <0.1% at rated power, than solid state amps, which is ironic since it is more difficult to accomplish with solid state.

If you perfer to call that 'an issue', fine. But how could you expect 'it' to go away? That is, as long as there are those who's principal interest in audio is 'true to the original', rather then this preferance for that particual distortion characterist over that one, etc., even if typically described poetically.