Tube vs. Solid State Amplifiers

FWIW I wanted to add that the opposite can also be true as well, that a ss preamp coupled with tube amplification can be quite beautiful/satisfying...
I own a Line Magnetic LM-508ia and when used with a solid state preamp (in this case the CODA 07x), the overall sound was better IMO than using the unit with its 6SN7 preamp section (even with NOS tubes)...

ENJOY! 

@davkobza +1 yes a Tube pre with SS amp or SS pre with tube amps can be quite a combo. At the same token hybrid integrated like McIntosh and Pathos offer are quite nice too.

Tubes are more interesting and for my tastes simply sound more like the real thing. Also tubes make the owner of a tube amp seem more interesting than otherwise as you can say to people, "I use tube amps" and stand back as they note how interesting that is...or they simply don't care...damn...*sniff*...

Watts are watts as long as the load is a simple resistor. As soon as you're driving a complex impedance with resistance, inductance, and capacitance it might be better to say that current is current. And many (most) solid state amps use current limiters to protect their output stages from excessive current draw by their loads. A SS amp that will happily say, 5 Amps into an 8 ohm resistor, will complain mightily if the phase angle of the load shifts towards 90 degrees and the impedance  becomes much lower,  drawing current the amp can't cover, so on come the the current limiters, at far less than the rated power.

Good SS amps have power supplies and output stages that can handle complex loads, but 'watts per dollar' amps have to cut corners, and the easiest places to do so is in the output stage  current handling and power supply. 

Tubes are more interesting and for my tastes simply sound more like the real thing. Also tubes make the owner of a tube amp seem more interesting than otherwise as you can say to people, "I use tube amps" and stand back as they note how interesting that is...or they simply don't care...damn...*sniff*...

This! ^  :-D