Why don’t tube amps sound like tubes anymore?

Just because technology continues to expand doesn’t necessarily mean it is going to sound better.

Perceptive point, especially given that "technology" includes any number of different elements -- some which have progressed much more than others in the past 10 (or whatever) years. I'm not an amp designer so I don't know which parts have had big advances, nor do I know what design innovations there have been. So, to compare "tubes" and "solid state" seems pretty hard to do without a list of which types are involved and which specific parts, too.

What? My tube amps sound like tubes. What are you using? Try using vintage tubes. Many are very affordable. My .02

It’s funny how in this modern age of technology we haven’t been able to match or even surpass the quality of yesterday’s ( NOS ) tubes. I guess that has something to do with the lack of need for high standard tubes for military and other technologies that once depended on them.

Here is one reason for the sound...

Tubes always played through "transformers" before reaching the speakers. Its the transformer that could give that lush sound. For tubes can be lightning fast when not hindered at the outputs. We were hearing a transformer effect. Transformers have gotten better in quality. The problems with old solid state have been greatly worked out. If we could hear how the old solid state stuff sounded when compare it with solid state now? You would prefer the new solid state over the old SS, like one would have preferred tubes over the old SS. That lush tube sound is unnatural and is like listening to music being played through damping fluid. The kind of fluid used to make tone arms descend slowly. Some prefer the lazy tube sound. But its far from how fast real dynamic music sounds when heard live. IMHO

Oh what a bunch of utter hogwash.

What is tube sound exactly? I've built hundreds of tube amps from scratch and I couldn't tell you what "Tube sound" is. You can make tube amps that sound great or terrible. You can make them hard and brittle or lush and boring.

If you care to and know how, you can make them sound like music.

Make them sound like tubes though, how do you do that? Why would you want to? The idea long has been to make the bits and pieces between the start and end disappear so that the music can get through. 

Let's face it, most attempts at that, tube and transistor, fail miserably.
That's why there is so much turnover in equipment on this website.

It's not the bits and pieces. Really, it's not. It's what you do with them.

Remember in the 60's, the great analytic vs romantic debate?
Which one was right? This bad sound or that bad sound?

Oh, just forget that I brought it up..