Describe ube sound vs solid state

i have heard from quite a few that tubes make the experience of music unreal more then that from solid state

When tubes make things sound unreal it may sound pleasant. With ss you recognize the unreal immediately as distortion.

I prefer Pass labs over all other solid state. Also over tube sound. Because it has a very musical mid, but a superior timing and speed compared to tubes. Beside this you get a more dynamic sound with more layers. This is price less. When you want a more tube sound, you can add a tube pre amp. Even listening to the best tube pre amp abd power I can audition limitations. As you know I hate every single limitation. In my world there is no room for limitations.

I do not have personal experience with tubes in my own system so my comparison is my long experience with SS versus George Merrill's set up in Memphis. It was not a top of the line Tube system but it was the most musical set up I had ever heard. Pls note , a system IMHO is more than a single component and his components were well matched. It was like live music in a well design music amphitheater. I have put together a pass labs SS class a system with a RCM Sensor 2 phono that is very similar to the sound I heard at George's place. I find the pass SS sound in my system is fast, accurate explosive, but can take on the delicacy of a musical piece like Ravel's Bolero.
I am not trying to hype or review pass labs but rather say SS on Tube systems can sound similar and great. I think it's the art of matching components as much as it's the genealogy of SS vs Tube

My take is different, there is good sound and bad sound. 20 to 30 years ago solid state amps were appalling, and the only solution was to go tube, which is what I did. Nowadays solid state amps are "ube" good, and so I have given up the tube thing.
I would say don't get hung up on the technology, listen and whether it is class A, A/B, D, and the rest of the alphabet, or tube go for the best sound.
The fundamental difference is something to do with distortion and clipping, tubes do it in a nicer way than transistors (even order harmonics). There is a hassle value with tubes, warming up, current draw and heat...and the tubes are constantly wearing out! What always amazes me is people buy exorbitantly priced tube gear, and the first thing they do is roll the tubes:)...like the designer got it wrong>
OK OK I also rolled tubes, it was fun:)
Bottom line is there are good and bad implementations of both SS and tube amps, so one is not necessarily better than the other. Historically there was a time when tubes in general knocked the socks off solid state.