Tube power vs Solid state power, how much is enoug

Can I raise another can of worms, after this excellent thread seems to have come to a natural conclusion. Most people agree there is a difference between tube and SS watts, possibly related to the tube amps prediliction for "soft clipping", but what about the difference between the watts in different tube applications? It's my impression there are clear differences, going beyond the Class A, A/B question. Am I right in saying Push/Pull has less grunt than SET for example and output tube choice is critical too, maybe EL34, less than 300B, in turn less than 845 or KT88. I may be way off track, but would appreciate any views. The proviso is of course, different speakers present different loads to the power amp and so produce different apparent volume levels.

I am sitting firmly on the fences when it comes to tube vs. transistor.

Of the many tube amps I've owned, I've yet to find one that is completely satisfying in the bass. The best ones gave me good bass without the depth, tightness, and impact of the best solid-state bass. And there is quite a bit of information missing at the top end which invariably leads to a reduced sound stage. For rock and big symphonic music, ALL my tube amps were deficient in the bass and ran out of gas, even at 120 wpc!

Of the solid-state amps I've owned, none ever gave me the midrange magic of tubes. The best ss high, while extended and detailed, never rid itself completely of that last bit of hardness. NONE of my ss amps gave me the intimate, magical sound for vocals, jazz and chamber music.

So I own both types of amp and switch from tube to transistor and back frequently. I have tried ss at the bottom and tube on top with excellent but far from perfect results. While the ss bass is outstanding and the tube midrange is magical, the highest-frequency information is still missing and the sound stage is not as large as it could be.

I found that I was happiest when I matched the amp/preamp to the music I was listening to at the time. I tend to use ss amps for rock and big symphonic music. I prefer tube amps for vocals, jazz and chamber music. (NOTE: Lately, my switching amp comes close to giving me everything I always wanted: deep bass, smooth midrange, extended highs, and huge soundstage. But I still miss that caramel-coated midrange of tube. It ain't accurate but I'm hooked on it!)

The best amp for you may depend more on your musical preference than anything else. You may have sufficient power with tube unless you love rock and large symphonic sound, then only ss will do. Bi-amping with ss and tube will solve some of your problems but not all. The perfect amp is yet to be invented.

justin time is correct...even the mightiest of tube amps and the most refined ss amps won't quite do what the other can. the loudspeakers you use are still the most important thing. i have been a long time advocate of push/pull tube amps, trying to have it all so-to-speak. i was recently given a tiny revox integrated which pretty much equalled my reference gear in every way except that 'front to back' depth that tubes do so well. tonally though, it is an equal to an amp that cost almost 5 times as much. the distain many tube enthusiasts have for ss gear is more emotional than reality based. your software(cd's, vinyl), your loudspeakers, and your room are- at the end of the day- are more important for the long haul

I was running 2 McIntosh MC-162's in mono (320wpc) and decided to try tubes. I bought a pair of Antique Sound Labs wave 8 monos here on Agon and holy cow!!! I was running them through B&W 604 s3's by the way, the little 8 watt tube amps (to me) actually sounded better. in the end, in my opinion, it all depends on what your going to listen to. for vocals and Jazz, clasical tubes are the way to go, but if you have those days where you have to blast some Metallica there is nothing like solid state.

Reading these comments .. A couple of things .. My first audio systems were tube driven - that's all there were then. If you wanted flat 20 to 20kHz frequency response (remembering that music frequency is is definitely not a constant) you need a high quality output transformer, an inductive device with capacitive elements (keeping in mind that reactance varies with frequency) to produce a flat frequency response. This resulted in the need for, for instance, non-symmetrically wrapped windings (there's an art to that - but maybe today's computers have taken much of the art out of that - I don't know). A good output transformer never came cheap. Then there's distortion where the degree of it is centered primarily around biasing, feedback, and individual device quality. Class A was always most desired but you couldn't expect it to remain linear and then get much power out (I won't get into push-pull, class B, class A/B approaches to getting more power out). Circuit design gets quite tricky. I did love the tube sound - but with the right speakers.

Ah yes .. Speakers. All speakers have their own distinctive sound. From my perspective, that's where you need to start and then build your system chain backwards from there. We all hear sounds differently and each of us have our own preference in music. To my ears, the best sounding speakers I ever heard were a pair of Apogee Scintilla all ribbon speakers. These were VERY low impedance speakers, each of which required large Krell or Threshold power amplifiers. You can love your tube sound, but no tube amp would ever do these justice .. and by the way, these were the only speakers I've ever heard that sounded so natural that, eyes closed, you'd swear the performers were standing right there in front of you. This was back in the 1980s and the cost was $7,000ish for the speakers. I figured I could somehow work that out. But then we had to start talking about the very expensive amps needed to drive them, and the size of room necessary for listening (being bi-directional they had to be far from the wall). Alas, the closest I could come to these that would fit my budget were Magnepan 4 ohm ribbon tweeter speakers. They also require a lot of current to drive them (Bryston 4B ST works well for these), they, when set properly provide a clean, detailed sound with great stage.

I guess the point is, it's all about the quality (to your ears) of the sound of the music that counts. And my experience says that quality runs linearly with cost (it's a long path before significant diminishing return starts to set in), at least that's the case if one's preference is music that features natural acoustic instruments (Jazz, classical, folk, etc).