Tube Vs. SS Preamps

@jjss49 perfectly worded my observations. 

@mulveling 's advice matches my experience. After using I number of 6922/6DJ8 and other "roller" preamps, I found more satisfaction with a 6H30-based design, used in many BAT & Audio Research models. Some may see a downside in no compatibility with all the legendary, exotic vintage tubes. I've overcome that by wearing the Amperex Bugle Boy logo on a tshirt while I listen to my 6H30s. Cheers,

Spencer

I like Macs most of them.. I love the older C11,20,22 or the MX110z they are all  wonderful when restored or not, depends.. I really like some of the SS pres . C45, MX120, 121, and 150. I like my C2500 too, what a nice preamp.. Macs are simple to please. Use Telefunken valves in their preamps.. If you do work on the units stay away from yellow polly cap rebuilds.. They were built with PIO, rebuild with PIO.. LEAVE the Black Beauties..

Regards

As others have described above, I find tube to offer sound with better texture, saturated harmonics and a presentation that seems to bloom naturally into the listening space.  I think good solid state can sound smooth, natural and lacking in artificial edginess, but, I tend to find something missing that makes the sound seem flat and less engaging.  I own a pretty decent solid state linestage (Levinson No. 32) but, I prefer my custom-built tube linestage (310 tube).  

While you may get a "taste" of tube sound with a tube linestage, I think the electronic component that has the biggest impact is the amplifier.  The right tube amplifier will make a huge difference (the wrong one likewise will sound quite bad).  It is harder to find the amp that will mate well with a particular speaker than it is to match any other components, but,  that is, to me, the big step in improving one's system.

In one of the old Vacuum Tube Valley magazines I remember reading an article about the supposed advantages of tubes vs solid state audio. Among several listed reasons for tube gear "sounding" better was that tubes emphasize even order harmonics, whereas solid state emphasizes odd order harmonics. 

My experience is the sound is different.

My initial systems were entry level SS and I acquired McIntosh C2600 tube preamplifier - it was a dramatic improvement.  Using an analogy the music was clearer - I could easily hear specific instruments in the context of the song and had a better sound stage of where the musicians were playing.

I've also heard very good SS preamps.  I recently auditioned one as I consider upgrading and evaluating a pure linestage preamp with separate phono stage.

Listening side by side to a series of songs, the sound was different from the McIntosh and to my ears it was 'clearer' and frankly my first concern was would the sound be irrating so I played some songs where there could be harshness.

Ultimately, I think the difference is the audible nature of distortion.  SS can have much less distortion and a whether tube or SS a well designed tube preamp uses the distortion within its sound singature.