A tubes vs. Solid State question.


I have followed several of the threads regarding the tubes vs Solid State debate and I am puzzled by the dogmatism of this issue. I have several friends here on AudiogoN who are avid tube lovers so my question is obviously an attack on this stand, but do tube lovers think people with solid state equipment are deaf or is it that they have never heard tubes.
I have owned tube equipment and was fairly content with it but I have since changed to all SS gear. I am much happier with my system now that I have ever been before. Dare I say it? Yes I like SS amps, pre-amps, and phono stages! Does that damage my credibility or was it already gone? Maybe I'm wrong but I get the impression tube people think if we SS people ever heard tubes we would trash all of our gear and run to the nearest glowing orange light to buy all new equipment. Am I off the mark?
128x128nrchy
cheers guys...i am female audiophile! yep, there are not too many of us around here. i have an ARC preamp with Pathos power amps...best of both SS and tube world, i feel.
Clueless,
Takes a bold person to put lacquer on components in
a SS device that costs many $K.
I still haven't gone back to tubes, but the Klyne pre-amp which replaced the Krell a couple of years ago has more of a tube sound than SS. Does that count for anything?
Tubes I liked, because they are more forgiving, less synergy problems overall, and always a nice touch to any system. And they are the most Tweakable so this gives options to the user, in regards to tube rolling, normally easy to change out capacitors, and power conditioning etc..., they are just a tad more sensitive to change and can reward or tell you no this is not working faster than solid state. However I have gone the way of the darkside and found for my end need that Solid state is superior all around. This would probably not be true 10 years ago, with the inferior digital and other solid state equipment, but with the much, MUCH better Engineered Recordings Today from about the year 2000' on up and Gear that has Closed that gap between the Tube and solid state with making some very musical and emotional pieces its very tuff. It will take some matching still with SS' no doubt so not every combination is perfect, but you got to many choices to get there, basically I guess the still safe bet in the middle of the road is to get a Tube pre-amp in between and you find some of the magic if it is still needed. But as for tube amps, to much money to run and too many power tubes to get the kinds of power I need to have that bottom end and super smooth scale I like to hear.
The subject of this thread can be modified a bit into: solid state and single ended, low powered tube amplification. Some audiophiles, including very venerable ones from Japan (Sakuma, Kondo, Shindo) are preaching that the way of listening to music is through single ended amplification and high efficiency transducers (horns or single full range driver designs). This is also the most simple set up with the less number of passive and active components. To these people reproduced music should sound alive and engaging and devoid of "electro-mechanic" sound. It is also notable that one of the most musical sounding solid state amps, the 47-Labs Gain card is based on this minimalistic philosophy. This amp can be considered to be a solid state substitute for a tube amp.