Tube Power vs Solid State Power

Watts are only one parameter, and an easy one to market, like Megapixels in Photography. I remember back in the 60s when solid state first got started. The marketing drive was how many transistors a radio had. The more the better so the more it sold.

My current 40 watt mono block tube amps drive the few speakers I own better than several solid state amps I had that had more than double that power. I'm not implying that tube watts are always better than solid state butin my current set up, it has proven to be. There are so many other factors  like current, power supply, that affect the ultimate outcome.

Finally, current tube gear performane, as shipped from the manufacturer, is likely constrained by currently available production tubes. It has to be that way as  amp manufacturers needs big quantities of tubes, Although the current tubes available are decent and better than 10 years ago, numerous older tubes have further significant positive impact on the sound.

Heavy i put the ball right above the net for a Mac autoformer spike….

excepting Ralph, Julius, the Joule dude and a few others, what we are mostly discussing ain’t tubes…but transformers…. The real great tube amp designers are rolling their own, so to speak…often by hand….

Carry on ….

All I can say is what I’ve experienced. I have 95 db sensitive open baffle speakers from Spatial. I’ve run about five amps from six watts a channel tube up to 700 watts a channel solid state mono blocks. Of everything I tried, 20 watts of transformerless tube has the best bass, best dimensionality, best imaging, best everything. More watts didn’t make for better sound, just more headroom I didn’t need.

Sshhh, you’ll wake the circular argument tautology ostriches. One of em might pull its head out, see its own shadow, get so startled it thinks its a hedgehog, go running for cover bang into a mono block pass out and wake up sputtering word salad. On second thought never mind, same difference.

I prefer solid state class A single ended, as in sugden. I leave the tubes to the ancillary sources, such as the phono preamp, and my tubed border patrol dac, tubed rectifier power supply to be more accurate. I think this is the way to go, as you get the best of both worlds and also more flexibility to change things out.

I am more in the camp of tube vs. solid state matters the most when it comes to the amp, not so much the sources or linestage.  While I prefer all-tube, I think that finding the right amp is the most important thing when matching electronics to one's chosen speaker.  If the speaker is reasonably efficient, and if one does not have an extremely large room and insist on playing at rock concert levels, I personally like tube amps.  In the somewhat extreme circumstance where more than 100 watts is really needed, I might consider solid state because I don't like high-powered tube amps.  For most applications, I think one can find a good pentode/tetrode pushpull or output transformerless tube amp, and with high efficiency, single-ended triode amps can be added to the list of candidates.

When it comes to the amount of power needed, I think more people err on the side of going for "more" when they should have been emphasizing "better."