Is pure class A ss the equal to tubes?

Everyone likes something different. Some people will not like the sound of SS nomatter how good it is, while others will not like tubes.

An apple will never be equal to an orange, and a man will never be equal to a woman. They are two different things, but both can still be wonderful. BUT never equal!

No, a pure class A ss amp is better than tubes (generally speaking). It will have deeper, tighter bass and more extended treble. And these differences are more apparent at low volume levels because of the way the human hearing mechanism works... Since you already have a good tube preamp, I'd go ss on the amp. Just my opinion, based on my own experience; YMMV.

this discussion will go on forever. the only ss amp i have heard that i could live with is gryphon. it is better than many tube amps . the best ss i have heard to date. i still am a tube man. if you blast your music tubes genrally are not the choice. if you like realistic sound vocals textures to the music. tubes win almost every time.

Definitely not, I have bought pure class A SS, I did not have courage to buy tube amp and it was big mistake.
Now i will have to buy tube pre to make sound more listenable.
It is not even close to what I have hear can do good tube amp.

I will go with Nrchy. The more I interact with other audiophiles the more amazed I am that it is a matter of taste. I though I would never go back to tubes but, you guessed it, I got about 35 of them heating up my listening room and they're class AB.

And they sound wonderful at low volumes.

Truth is, my previous SS class AB didn't sound too bad at low volumes either. Or loud.

Theoretically, class A amps should have an advantage since there is no transition from push to pull near zero voltage as there is in a class B amp. This transition can be a source of distortion. But, for the high end amps which are usually at least Class AB, the transition is moved up to higher sound levels (i.e. it is not at zero amplitude) and the amount of distortion due to the transition is greatly reduced.

Maybe some people are more sensitive. On my amp, which runs class AB, the amount of bias is adjustable. If it is biased higher, it provides class A operation to higher amplitudes and becomes more linear. So if you are sensitive to this just change the bias with some reduction of power tube lifetime.