Solid state amplifiers and sound stage, especially front to back "depth"

Solid state amps do not play depth in the recording unless the recording has depth information but when you play a good recording they will have a lot of depth especially if your speakers are two or more feet out from the wall behind them.

+1 @speakermaster

tube gear tends to 'manufacture' a degree of imaging depth it seems, whereas ss gear does not, generally

Solid state amps do not play depth in the recording unless the recording has depth information but when you play a good recording they will have a lot of depth especially if your speakers are two or more feet out from the wall behind them.

In a room with acoustic controls in place, any relatively good amplifier WELL DESIGNED, produce depth accordingly proportionate to the ability of the recording engineer. ANY "well designed" S.S. or tubes....

Most people think they listen to their turntable or dac or amplifier or speakers....

It is a half-truth, then worst than a falsity....

We listen WITH and FROM the room filled by the reflecting waves crossing different pressure zones ...
Then for sure there is a difference in sound quality between dacs or amplifiers or speakers.... But there is most of the times way more less difference between pieces of gear than the huge difference between listening in an acoustically controlled room OR in an uncontrolled one...

Why most people then speak without end about the differences in sound between their gear pieces and only boast about them?

Because all marketing is there to sell "sonic heaven" with the only pieces which they can sell at the price of gold: electronical design engineering new pieces of gear....

I used straws and empty cardboard rolls and discardeed plumbers tubes and pipes from my basement to create my grid of Helmholtz resonators....

Then i know what i speak about....

The audiophile value of a system is not the price paid but is BASED on the OPTIMAL RATIO : Sound quality/price...

When we have any good audio system optimal by this ratio( then it is not the costlier in the world) we must take care of the ACOUSTIC of the room to go to another level.... Not necessary now to upgrade a piece at all cost by frustration...Like most people thought and did without paying attention to the acoustic...

Another reason i must say is that most people are in the obligation, with no other choice, to put their system in a common room and CANNOT transform the living room into an audio laboratory like i did in a dedicated room...

Sorry for you... 😥

But now you know that the most luxury and opulent tool in audio is not a piece of gear but the ROOM.....

Reading posts in audio, i know for sure that most people has never lived through this process of going from an ordinary room to a controlled room....If they would have do it , they will vouch about their room value FIRST not about a branded name of speakers or amplifiers....

It is easy to replace any piece of gear by a better one, less easy to learn how to control room acoustic...

And sorry buying costly acoustic panels will not do the job only half of of the job, and no sellers of acoutic panels anyway can say this truth to you if they want to sell their "miraculous" panels.... To do a good job may cost the price to enroll an acoustician for more than a week for activation of the room and not just put panels here or there.. I read an acoustician who speak about 50,000 bucks to do the job ... 😊😁

It cost me empty toilet paper rolls and straws, cardboard empty roll, plastic tube,metal pipes of various diameters etc ... Nobody will believe me.... But an Helmholtz engine do not need a precious metal enclosure or special material to work.....

Acoustic MAY cost nothing, save the time of the listenings experiments like a piano tuner tune a piano, you can tune your room....

 By the way my ears are average, no need of these "golden ears" spoke about by idiots....But average ears need more time..... It takes me full time 2 months for my grid.... It has been longer but not full time for the passive material treatment....

The OP swapped out his mono tube amps with depth for a solid state (SS) amp without depth. One swap back to validate the cause is not the recording, not the speaker placement, not room treatments.  

@decooney Exactly.

@ speakermaster

Solid state amps do not play depth in the recording unless the recording has depth information but when you play a good recording they will have a lot of depth especially if your speakers are two or more feet out from the wall behind them.

Sorry to repeat myself, both in the OP and in the follow up posts I did, but I have stated that my comparison is very carefully limited to those recordings with depth information as demonstrated by tube amps.

@mahgister I've already stated that I've paid a lot of attention to the room. You're dissertating on your favorite topic and celebrating your (apparently effective) Rube Goldberg inventions, at length, and hopefully someone benefits. It does nothing for the question at issue in my OP, but whatever. You want to write a long post about what you know and what you do and how inexpensive but effective it is? Have at it.