Why do tubed preamps image better than SS?

Atmasphere...
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Anything is possible as long as it comes with price tag. For the $$, majority of tube gear will have better bang for the buck performance over SS

Tubes do not image "better" than SS only differently. Tubes often expand the soundstage because of microphonics but lack focus and coherency for the same reason. They, like ill-placed subwoofers are sometimes nothing more than subtle "reverb" units. SS on the other hand seems to convey the inadequacies of recorded sound all too vigorously, but often with seductive immediacy. Looks like a match made in Heaven, don't you think?

my understanding is this:

tubes 'distort' differently than SS (and EVERYTHING distorts. it is just, how, and to what extent, how/if you can perceive it, etc) - something to the effect of the distortion being in phase w/ the output?

therefore, when it comes to sound stage / detail (which is typically, at least in my mind / ears, derived from the highs/mids) if you are distorting in a more 'pleasing' manor, you will 'hear' better imaging.

I don't think the question in the original post makes any sense. The best imaging preamp I have ever heard far and away is the H-Cat which is ss. The second best is the tubed Exemplar Audio. H-Cat does not talk about phase but rather doppler shift. Exemplar talks about the noise level of the ac power supply. The Exemplar does not sound like any other tube preamp I have ever heard and indeed does not sound like tubes at all until you compare it with the H-Cat.