Why don’t tube amps sound like tubes anymore?

hiendmmoe Why don’t tube amps sound like tubes anymore?

 I found with many of the tube amps I owned (especially remember a pair of  100w switchable ultralinear/triode/pentode monoblocks 4 x NOS 6550 GE mil spec each amp I had), "and improved the sound" on over many months with better interleaved output transformers better caps, getting the tubes to work in the more linear part of their curves, power supplies etc etc.
The "better I made those tube amps and others sound and measure", the closer they got to the sound of "great high bias solid state amps", the rest is history for me with tubes, never again.

Cheers George

Great-sounding amps should sound more alike than different. It’s music, not ice cream.  Modern tube amps require no more maintenance than solid state. A great sounding tube amp will tend to be more affordable than a solid state amp of comparable quality.

Wima caps wee used in most of the Counterpoint power amps and preamps.  That being said, I would call those products not sounding like tubes even as hybrids.  The mosfets gave that warm sound.   Taking out the Wima for Nichicon and V-Caps retains the musical sound but more to what you are describing.  Replacing the mosfets with bi-polar transistors is another story.

Happy Listening.

Actually, it is more like modern SS amps are sounding more like Tube amps. Modern tubes are every bit as good as the NOS stuff. frequently better. NOS tubes are a seriously expensive joke. More like a rip off. 

I'm new to tubes and people have said (in forum posts and in articles) that tube gear sounds like solid state depending upon *which tubes* are used.

But the conversation above doesn't really talk about which tubes very much, and people are mentioning that the responsible differences involve "caps" or "resistors" etc. How much do the particular tubes used play into the final sound of the tube amp sound?