There is a select group of professional recording engineers now working who are considered the best in the business, responsible for some of the best sounding recordings ever made---lifelike instrumental timbre, high resolution and transparency, who can record on any equipment they choose. They have no allegiance to any system, just to getting the best sound possible. One such engineer is Kavi Alexander of Water Lily Records, located in Santa Barbara California.
Kavi not only continues to prefer analog tape to digital (though higher bit rates and sampling frequencies---24/192, are narrowing the gap), but he uses a very customized recorder that employs tubes! He does so NOT because of any "musical distortion" the recorder adds to the direct mic feed, but for the exact opposite reason---it is the most transparent, least distortion-adding method of recording he has found.
Kavi’s has produced some of the most astonishingly lifelike recordings ever made, including the Grammy Award-winning "A Meeting By The River", on which master slide guitarist Ry Cooder plays. Ry is VERY serious about the sound of his guitars (both live and recorded), which led him to make the first digitally recorded Pop (non-Classical) album, Bop Til You Drop. He HATED it! When he heard a Water Lily label recording he asked "Why don’t my records sound this good?". He sought out Mr. Alexander, and plans were undertaken to make the AMBTR album. It is World Music, and one of the handful of best recordings I’ve ever heard..
The Water Lily recorder’s tube circuits were designed by Tim Paravicini, who has also done work for the David Gilmore/Pink Floyd Studio in London, considered one of the best in the world. Tim also designs consumer Hi-Fi products for EAR-Yoshino, including tube pre-amps, power amps, and digital products. EAR-Yoshino has one phono pre-amp that is all solid state, which Tim preferred in that application. He, like Kavi, generally prefers tubes to solid state, not for their "musical distortion", but for their sonic superiority. One may disagree with that preference, but one can not truthfully claim that their preference is based on a desire for "musical distortion".
