Solid State vs. Tubes - What if Transistors came first?

No, man, the magic is in the dust taken from old tubes which, by inductance....🐍💩

Transistors don't transmit, they modulate. Therefore what follows is a representation of the original input signal, it's not the input signal itself amplified. Tubes amplify the signal itself. That's an important distinction. Furthermore, tube circuits should have less components in them to screw up the sound. Obviously tubes have their own issues, but only the best of the best solid state circuits can compare to tube gear that you can buy from small manufacturers for a fraction of the price of the high end transistor gear. Just stick to octal tube gear. All that said, it would be unfair to not recognize the improvements in solid state of late. High speed demands are raising the bar for passive and active devices, therefore semiconductors are getting better and more accurate all the time, but for now the best bang for the buck is still tube equipment. It's just too bad that it took me decades to figure this out!

Are you saying that transistors process the signal, the result of this processing being a representation of the signal, that's amplification is only part of what happens during that processing ? And if so the outcome will always or almost always be a less pure signal compared to tubes.

Yes, the signal into a transister modulates the DC in the following stage, hence the term semi-conductor though properly written the hyphen isn’t there of course. It doesn’t actually conduct. There is always a PN junction, or a barrier. In a tube the electrons flow through. That likely accounts for the preception that tubes sound faster when dealing with good quality tubes in a well designed tube circuit. It only takes one crappy capacitor to screw up either type of circuit.