Tubes Do It -- Transistors Don't.

6chac, thanks, don't think I deserve your kind words, there are far better descriptions around here for what we experience, when listening to music.
Unsound, yes of course the child wasn't foolish, all I was trying to do, was to poke some fun at all of us here, me included, about the musiclover falling prey to audiophiles, like David fallen into the lion's den.
Oddly, or rather not oddly enough, no one took this up. Probably too busy bickering away. Possibly Muralman loves his Apogees more than music, Asa perhaps more, what his astute and nimble mind shapes and forms, by reflecting the experience, which music gives him as a catalyst. I love his shaping and forming, I learn from them, more often than not I agree with them, but in a sense they would remain flatus vocis for me until I would have grasped the nucleus of his experience, beyond his thinking and his arguing. Only then, I would be able to say, yes Asa loves or Muralman loves music, beyond all gear, thoughts, beliefs and other narcissisms, which so easily attach themselves to a hobby passionately pursued.
As I tried to state very early in this thread, the entire argument seems a bit outdated. Both formats have advanced and have moved closer to each other. The benchmark here I feel, should be musicality. Musicality is an elusive term, because (ASA is right here, to my mind) musicality is a quality of psyche. (I do not like the term "mind" here, because of its proximity to thinking or consciousness. )Like the sense for rhythm it seems engrained in our essence, in our dna if you will, it is archetypal. The experience of it jumps at us, be it from an interpretation or a composition, which we then call musical. In actual fact, what we hear is not musical per se, but acts as a catalyst on our psyche and moves it, before our thinking about it sets in. Hence, to follow this line of reasoning, a music lover has to be an arch-narcissist, an addict, longing for his next shot of music, tickling his endorphines? Not necessarily, because musicality always hits us by surprise. It is no category of our thinking- conscious mind. It hits us in the same way as would the sudden sight of a strikingly beautiful women striding on the other side of the road, or the unfolding of a rolling countryside, as we approach the summit of a pass-road.
Some amps can surprise us in that way, fairly consistently, with the right kind of music. Many simply cannot, ever. Amongst those, which I have experienced, are tubes as well as SS. I know SS amps which do this to me and I know tube amps which do not. For me the entire argument has become pretty much moot, especially since I have learnt to take and mingle the best of both worlds, in order to have the music get at me at that psychic level where it belongs and does me best. Cheers

Thank you Detlof for bringing some much needed compromise as well as wisdom to this debate. The overriding factor that I have found in that ever elusive term "musicality" has less to do with tube or ss devices so much as how components work together as a system in a given room.

Muralman's experience with Apogees mirror two separate experiences I had with both the Stages and Scintillas. Although I heard several of the other Apogees models in different systems, there are only two experiences that stand out and are included in those "musical moments" that one never forgets. What was very interesting to me and still baffles me to this day is how the Stage system synergized with a lowly Adcom amp. I didn't try to dissect why it sounded the way it did, like real music, but was just amazed that it did. Why? The room, the recording the set-up, all those things certainly contributed to the magic. I figured out a long while back, after that and a few similar experiences that sometimes a system comes together by luck, sometimes through skill but more often than not, through trial and error. With me the latter since I really don't have the technical skill to get it right the first time.

Things aren't black and white, music isn't tubes vs. ss. A great system is the sum of all its components, not least of all the room it is set-up in. It just is and when one experiences reproduced music as we hear it live, like Muralman did many years ago, nothing else matters other than the means and methods of recreating that magic in the home environment. We need to respect and encourage each other in our individual quest to attain that, this is what it's all about.

Tube Groover and Detlof, thankyou for the civil sanity. I shouldn't have stooped to the needling. I don't write here out of ego. I just get carried away with relating my successes.

It is a bit cruel of me to brag about Apogees, when most visitors here never will see one let alone hear one. It is my curse that I continue to try to recapture "the moment." My belief I can, urges me on.

For my enjoyment, the music my system provides is really without fault given my system and home parameters. Never can I justify the expense I would need to go the next five percent. My room, though very good, is a mortal's room, not the awesome dedicated room I heard the Scintillas. Neither can I afford a great turntable, arm, and cartridge (being frail, the first click or pop breaks my heart). I am looking for a pristine Scintilla.

Tubegroover, you are amazing. Were you a dealer? I owned the Stage too. I went through a lot of components looking for synergy with the Stage. It being the easiest of the Apogees to power, I settled on an able tube amp. When everything is zeroed in, the realism is eerie. You feel you can touch the face of a singer. Unfortunately, the Stage is a difficult brat to live with, it's positioning being so persnickety. The Duetta Sig is far more forgiving. I like it's loving sound. Major reviewer, Paul Bolin still uses one (last I saw) as his reference speaker.

Yes, more than tubes and/or ss, it is the system including room that makes or breaks a personally satisfying musical experience; things aren't black and white. Thankyou for that, tubegroover. I proved that to myself. With my Stage, I found happiness with tubes. With the Duetta it is with the Pass. Both systems are wonderful. As you can see, when it comes to types of ampliphiers, I offer no easy answer.

How things have calmed down.

On a side note: Scintilla. (yrs ago) I remember someone was trying to make his pair play music with a pair of Electro 50. These, while great, couldn't move the Scintillas beyond whispering level... they kept blowing fuses. All we wanted was to LISTEN to them so we looked around for a big tube, thinking that was a safe proposition -- but couldn't find anything on loan bigger than EAR 519 (i.e. mine, at the time). Those couldn't go very far either. Finally, a dealer consented to experiment with us and bring over 300 pds worth of amps (an old Symphonic Line model called Kraft 400A). These did it: we got the Scintilla scintillating, as it were.
For once transistors did it -- but the story is for Muralman1's benefit: not easy to drive Scintillas. Duettas were a piece of cake by comparison!

Well, I don't know about a spanking - remember, I did invite you both to contact me off this forum, which you chose not to do - so, I'll just leave you to your Apogees. Which, again, I consider nice speakers and am glad that you have found your nirvana, or close to it. As the old philosospher's adage goes, you can't teach the color purple to a blind man. I think the "what is" has it rigged that way. Actually, now that I think of it you and Bolin do have many qualities of perception in common - he loves the ARC VT100 6550-based amp and Nordost SPM too, components that if you haven't listened too, you should because you might like them. I'm going to have to take the good writer part back though; "hands on ivory" is just too much for me this morning. You write well when you are not so juiced up. I re-extend my invitation to a reasoned, mature conversation where their isn't an audience.

Apart from that, be well.