The ups and downs of tube vs. SS...

I love the sound of tubes. I ran tube amps of various configurations with either a Sonic Frontiers or Melos hybrid tube preamp for over 25 years in my main system. About a year ago I bought a pair of single ended solid state Valvet mono blocks. Since then I also purchased audio alchemy's latest preamp with it's optional power supply. I bought it initially as a dac but it really sounds great with the Valvet monos so it's replaced the melos preamp for the time being. Very surprising to me but, I'm not ready to sell the tube equipment yet... The Valvet amps sound very similar to the SE 6550 amp that was in the system prior. The difference is the 6550 (or KT88's) are a little (and I mean very little) fluid in the mids than the Valvets. The Valvets on the other hand have removed the distortion that I didn't realize was there to the extent it was with the SE amp. I'm not ready to say one is better than the other.

jtweed, beats me , don’t think I ever heard one .

boxer12 , The SS Valet amps which I have heard several times with Classical music on Brodmann speakers are the most musical SS amps  I've heard .

I have heard and owned several tube, hybrid, and ss preamps and amps over the last 40 years.

I found my pass labs x1 with pass labs xa30.5, xa 60.5, or son of ampzilla 2000 is clearer, dead quiet, and more life like than anything previously..

Tubes all the way!Todays tube amps especially have done away with sloppy bass and have staging and imaging that I've never heard in a SS system...