Are tubes psychological?

It’s like reading a book by a cozy fire versus central heat.

Same book, different experience.

That’s kind of how it feels to me.

Last I knew recording studios virtually always have tubes in the microphone amplifiers because they do somehow produce a warmer, less sterile sound.. What does that actually mean? I'm not sure, but the folks who make a living from music prefer tubes for vocals, or they did 10 or so years ago, I haven't revisited the subject in quite a while. OTOH, there are tubes, and there are tubes. The E6SN7s in a good circuit are awesome, most post WWII Sylvania tubes AFAIK, all suck, and the WWII and before Sylvanias are insanely expensive. So, it can become an insanely expense hobby once you start rolling tubes. The new Gold Lion line from New Sensor, in my finite experience are extremely good, and as stated, the E6SN7's by Linlai are awesome in a good circuit. If you want to check it out inexpensively I would recommend Schiit Audio's Lyr. I don't know how good their new Freya preamps are, I sold my original Freya it required 2 particular tubes to sound reasonably good, and I mean reasonably good. I got the Lyr out of curiosity, but it sounds pretty decent with the E-6SN7 tube. A set of E-6SN7 tubes are about as expensive as the preamp, but I tried getting individual tubes to save money, they were mostly garbage, pay up and get the manufacturer tested pair, even though your only using one at a time. That's an inexpensive introduction to a very good entry level preamp. The Vali 2 with a nice Siemens tube isn't bad either, but the Lyr better represents the full potential of a tube preamp. From there, I'd recommend a DS2, Don Sachs hand makes them, and he is semi-retired so he has slowed down production. They don't often show up on the used market, and the older ones don't have the option to use a better diode tube, etc.

The endless tube debate.  Frankly, tables sound better and it is objective, not subjective.

The problem is with the physics equations and what is defined as "distortion".  What is defined as "distortion" by physicists is actually positive sound quality, esp, in the lower harmonics.  This "distortion" is what provides the warm, rich sound of tubes.

I still remember when I was having my dad's classic tube system being rebuilt by Audio Classics.  I was talking to the tech, an engineer who had retired from IBM.  He commented on how solid state sounds better than tubes.  He started talking about charts, graphs, and other stuff like that that proved he was right.  Interestingly, he never mentioned one recording or piece of equipment--just graphs.  I call this listening by equations.  He was a great technician, but had no understanding of music.

Here is an article that actually explains this.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-cool-sound-of tubes

(Hopefully the link survives the security on this site.)

This shows how things labeled as "distortion" in tube equipment is misleading.

You have to trust your ears and listen.

As MC suggested, we create our own reality. So are tubes psychological? It’s your world. Say they are, say they’re not, it’s all the same story. No story, no world. 
 

Still, the world is more pleasant with tubes. I can’t imagine audio without them. 

@oldhvymec - That's Quay Lewd, dude! Yeah, I've seen the Tubes loads of times here in San Francisco, especially during their earlier days in the 70's...  Got some great photos, too, but I don't know how to post them on here without a URL....