My personal reaction to most of the better solid state gear-Soulution, Constellation, MBL, etc., is that they sound very good and do not have the bad qualities ascribed to solid state (grainy, harsh). While I cannot point out anything obviously wrong with the sound, for reasons I cannot really pinpoint, I tend to lose interest while listening to most solid state gear while better tube gear somehow tends to pull me into the music and performance more fully. The fact that there are some more obvious "flaws" to tube gear performance (not as tight bass, tonal coloration, sometimes dynamic compression or murky quality at high volume) becomes quite irrelevant. The overall experience, to me, is better with good tube gear.
On the other side of the coin, a lot of higher powered tube gear have qualities that seem more obvious flaws that I don't like at all--some are brittle and harsh ("glassy" sound) and are surprisingly lean in tonal balance (given the reputation of tubes) which seems to strip acoustic instruments of their body and rich harmonic structure. If I required a lot of power and an OTL amp was not the answer (not enough power or speaker impedance is too low or too variable), I would probably end up with solid state.
Within the lower powered tube camp, I hardly think that SET is the only way to go for truly great midrange or any other quality. I have heard quite a few great pushpull amps. I picked the one I currently run in my system primarily because it gets the midrange so "right" and the Audio Note Kageki that I also own that the pushpull amp replaced is no slouch in that area. My pushpull amp, which is essentially a re-built Western Electric 133A, puts out about 5.5 watts per channel (built in Italy by Aldo D'Urso who makes custom gear built to one's needs, personal specifications--tube type, transformer or capacitor coupled inputs, etc).
As for German solid state gear, I like the Burmester amp (I really liked their top end CD player) and I also like Symphonic amps.
