If I'm looking for "Tube Sound", why would I put a Tube Pre in front of a SS amp?

I might’ve misread it, Al.
If so, my apologies, Ralph.

@atmasphere 

Hi Ralph. To your point " What tubes do better than transistors is not make higher ordered harmonic distortions to which the ear is very sensitive and also perceives as irritating. That's not a matter of opinion its a simple fact and not a matter of debate."

I recall reading a number of articles on the Internet that indicate that while audiophile grade equipment seeks to avoid the distortion you are speaking of, other audio equipment such as some guitar amps seek to embrace it. So for the lay person like myself, while what you have indicated is very likely if not completely true in most cases, it seems conceivable that it may not be true in all cases. Meaning, while most people may perceive those higher end harmonics as irritating, I'd venture to say there are those that welcome it to some degree or another.  

I recall reading a number of articles on the Internet that indicate that while audiophile grade equipment seeks to avoid the distortion you are speaking of, other audio equipment such as some guitar amps seek to embrace it. So for the lay person like myself, while what you have indicated is very likely if not completely true in most cases, it seems conceivable that it may not be true in all cases. Meaning, while most people may perceive those higher end harmonics as irritating, I'd venture to say there are those that welcome it to some degree or another.  

What you read on the internet about guitar distortion is obviously inaccurate. This might come as a surprise, but its the guitar industry, not the hifi industry, which is why tubes are still in production after all these years. The reason for this is simple enough: when you overdrive a tube amplifier, it rounds the the waveform rather than chops it off. If you have a grounding in physics, you know that the corners of the chopped off waveform are higher ordered odd harmonics which are very irritating to the human ear. Guitarists prefer the rounded waveforms of an overdriven amplifier as part of their 'sound' about which they are quite picky!! I play in a band FWIW and am involved in the local music scene and have seen this first hand many times!

As it sits the guitar industry sells many more vacuum tube amplifiers than the hifi industry does- in fact they dwarf the hifi community. So they can dictate to the tube manufacturers what tubes are important. That is why there are EL34s, 6550s, 6L6s, 12AX7s, 12AT7s, 12AU7s and the like- those are all guitar amp tubes.

Now if a guitarist wants more 'bite' or 'crunch' to cut through the mix, often he or she will add a stomp pedal that makes a certain type of distortion. Some of these do indeed make more odd ordered distortion! But as any guitarist knows they have to be used with care to get the sound they are looking for, which is often an emphasis and not how they play all the time.

@mapman This is just me of course but I don't like the ARC preamps for the most part. It does seem like their later ones are better, but you don't have to go back very many years and the earlier ones seem kinda dry (indication of odd ordered content or lack of bass??) to me. My opinion only of course!

@inna  no worries! I agree that Rasmussen is one of the best Euro designers. I regard it as a great pity that Gryphon was the target of a disreputable reviewer here in the US some years back! I was in the Gryphon room CES at the time that the reviewer threatened Rasmussen that if he did not let the reviewer have the amplifier review sample for free he was going to trash it in the upcoming review.  That is exactly what happened some months later; that is part of why I feel that bad reviews are unethical. **That** is a topic for a different thread!!

Atmasphere my ARC is SP16,  not latest but newer.   

It has its own flavor of sound like any piece does.    Dry is not an adjective that comes to mind with it.  

The sound is hard to distinguish as "tube" based I would say, which I like.   I do not have enough data points to say exactly how it would compare to others but the results of using it in my system are quite good I would say and not leaving me cold having heard many a top notch system including a few incorporating Atmasphere amps. 

Each really good system I hear sounds different but all share certain attributes including the ability to go loud and clear without listener fatigue during longer listening sessions.  

I run 3 good quality speakers in three different rooms off the system with the ARC.   The sound in  each case varies widely.   With either of my OHm Walsh speakers there is no edge whatsoever which lends itself towards very long enjoyable listening sessions.   With my Dyunaudios in a smaller room, there is more bite to the sound which makes things more exciting perhaps but some might find it harder on the ears over time.

It all depends.  Good sound is a team sport that includes not only all the technology playing together but the room and the listener so its always hard to predict outcomes.

I heard this Gryphon story. Thinking along the same line, I would say that good reviews are equally unethical.