My perspective is that clean, well designed solid stage devices are pure and uncolored, especially when the devices are hand selected and hand matched as in the case with the Whest preamps.
Tubes, which I have lived with for decades in various Amateur radio and military transmitters and receivers are fine, but they have huge variables and matching them is key. They are colored in terms of how they perform and to me that is a distortion product. Plus they change in performance with use; internal component breakdown and loss of vacuum over time; in other words they have a limited life span. Its a very old technology which was replaced by solid state for a reason and SS has only gotten better over time and tubes are ’dated’ in my opinion with limited supplies.
Having owned a number of fine phono preamps over the past, the Whest was by far the best of what I have experienced. I like the total black background, no noise, no distortion, pure signal from my A90 Ortofon over to the rest of my system with deep down detail, huge dynamic range and the best bass response I have yet encountered.
Tubes, which I have lived with for decades in various Amateur radio and military transmitters and receivers are fine, but they have huge variables and matching them is key. They are colored in terms of how they perform and to me that is a distortion product. Plus they change in performance with use; internal component breakdown and loss of vacuum over time; in other words they have a limited life span. Its a very old technology which was replaced by solid state for a reason and SS has only gotten better over time and tubes are ’dated’ in my opinion with limited supplies.
Having owned a number of fine phono preamps over the past, the Whest was by far the best of what I have experienced. I like the total black background, no noise, no distortion, pure signal from my A90 Ortofon over to the rest of my system with deep down detail, huge dynamic range and the best bass response I have yet encountered.