Tube Amp Suggestions

Yes, I do not go over well with the 'connoisseurs of coloration'. My perspective is a pin that pops their 'preference-for-a-specific-distortion-chracteristics' bubble.

So they rant, shoot at the messenger as it were, instead of cry, and kick themselves for being so gullible, and begin listening for 'live' like sonics instead.

I uderstand. The hardest thing for a man to do is admit he is wrong. But a 'man' does, and has a happy wife. Boys do not, and their marriages are in trouble.

it sounds a bit extreme to me to say that tube-lovers are "boys" and "their marriages are in trouble." comments like this are childish and don't show you to a "man" as you proclaim. until recently, i was a diehard solid state fan as well (owned acurus amps, aragon amps, and most recently, a plinius sa-102) but i switched to tubes because i preferred the way the music sounded to me. you prefer the way the music sounds to you with solid state. no biggie. i can identify. to come on this forum and bash tube users because tube amps have higher distortion doesn't make sense. what the hell does it matter as long as we are both happy? i enjoy my setup. i'm certain you enjoy yours. there is no right or wrong....only what you enjoy.

Didactically, you are pretty emotionally involved in a debate that many, like myself, didn't even realize was still an issue with anyone.

As for your perspective, it is more like a sledge hammer missing its mark than a pin popping anyone's preferences. I did enjoy your last analogy, but don't see it as being applicable in any sense.

I think tubes are great. It is distortion that I do not like. It interfers with the music, which is what I prefer to hear rather than the system. (The 'connoissers of coloration' nothwithstanding :-)

For some reason fewer tube amps are made with distorion <0.1% at rated power, than solid state amps, which is ironic since it is more difficult to accomplish with solid state.

If you perfer to call that 'an issue', fine. But how could you expect 'it' to go away? That is, as long as there are those who's principal interest in audio is 'true to the original', rather then this preferance for that particual distortion characterist over that one, etc., even if typically described poetically.

Did you just miss the point, or is it a strategy to so erronously characterize what I actually said, or at least obviously meant.

I am not 'die hard' anything other than 'true to the original' as a principal in audio. Though I realize it is a departure from the 'connoisseur of coloration' to personal subjective taste approach.

I want to hear the music, not my system, and fully accept that audiophila is predominatly populated with those who perfer the latter, but there still exist some who prefer the former like me, and who tend to respond to my views quite differently.

AT any rate, if I could find a 40w tube amp with a maximum <0.1% THD/IMD at rated power over a 5hz-50khz frequency range... do you know of one? I would prefer it to drive the mids/treble of my system (ss is better for woofers).