Why no interest in reel to reel if you're looking for the ultimate sound?

Dear @orpheus10  : ""  I borrowed a high end ARC SS preamp for audition, and me and my audiophile friend listened for only a few minutes before we decided to return i ...""

Seems to me that you don't read what I posted to you:

" In the other side normally when a gentleman accustomed to years of tubes designs makes a comparison with SS units he is waiting that what he will listening it comes with similar colorations that tubes he is accustom to and this is the trouble for him because SS just can't sounds/performs like tube in almost any way, SS is faithful to the recording adding the less and losting the less when tubes are the other way around. "


But your experiencewith SS gone further when you say: " a few minutes ".

I can't understand what you and your friends were waiting/expected to listen after " minutes " when all where accustomed to tubes for YEARS?.
Your mind/brain does not " permit " other kind of sound but the one developed by tube electronics.

Your experience means almost nothing and useless.

MUSIC is not sweet or or heavy colored, gentle,  and the like. MUSIC is agresive, brigthness, powerful, with natural colorations, fully dunamic, great rythm, up-front, full emotive, etc, etc.

You and your friendsd need to have several experiences to listen live MUSIC seated at nearfield position like recording microphones and then you will understand why tube experiences are so wrong and SS is truer to the recording.


Please tell us how many minutes or hours can you listen a horn  player playing at real SPL seated at say 3m.?
Your ears can't " resist " a half a hour with out severe permanent damage when a recording microphones can take signal over 120db SPL for hours.

I think that you and @johnss  need that kind of near field live MUSIC experiences before what both posted.

We are talking of different " things ". I'm talking about stay truer to the recording and you are talking of the love you have for those heavy colorations/distortions tubes generates and that the result is that are far away from the recording. Yes I know that that is what you like but your targets are way different from mine.

With out those near field experinces you can't understand what I posted here. Do it, is a learning lesson and helps any one to really appreciate his room/system experience.

R.

I have a Technics 2 Track 1500 that has been modified with Black Gate capacitors when such things were available, that I'm quite satisfied with.

My speakers are custom built to have 0 sound of their own. An "eccentric" speaker design engineer designed the crossover, and I picked out the drivers. They're so neutral, that you can immediately tell the difference between interconnects.

I've listened to many beguiling speakers that had a sound of their own, such as Klipsch La Scala, and many others that sound very appealing, but my speakers simply put out what you put in, meaning I get nothing but what the artist intended.

I have often wanted to compare my speakers to other speakers, but that's no longer an option since brick and mortar stores no longer exist in my area. If and when I get excess funds, I will buy some very expensive speakers that I have picked out and finally compare.

Raul, what you don't understand is the fact that for all of my life, I never listened to anything else but SS. My audio education was with Julian Hirsch and "Stereo Review", and neither him nor the magazine was into tubes; as a matter of fact, I don't recall anything but SS.

When we (my audiophile friend and I) auditioned that CJ tube preamp (loaner) that was obviously defective, with both noise and distortion, but the music sounded better; that SS preamp that I owned at that time was certainly the last SS preamp I will ever own. His ears were so keen that he could tell when I replaced interconnects.

 Those who do not listen OFTEN to LIVE acoustic music aka , jazz or symphonic, have not given their brain a tract that understands what music really sounds like.
Those who have tend to use tubes because they alone sound like a room
with air in it .

You got it Schubert!