Tube sound is not about warmth. It's about correct presentation.

asctim, this is a fascinating hypothesis. Interesting reading about photography too, though I didn't really understand everything.

There is nothing academically superior about tube amp performance. It is less accurate than competently designed solid-state, full stop. If a solid state system sounds poor, lacking, irritating or incorrect, the most likely culprit is the speakers or the room. Tubes can go a long way in masking the weaknesses of many speakers. Most listeners would rather throw tubes at the system than address their speaker problem. 

It’s a pity that these conversations always lead to food fights. But I prefer tubes. 

Tubes can go a long way in revealing the strengths of the speakers. 

Back in the mid-80s Bob Carver challenged the writers of Stereophile Magazine that he could tweak his relatively inexpensive solid state amp to sound exactly the same as any tube amp of their choosing. The writers of Stereophile accepted the challenge and chose a highly respected and much more costly tube amp as the benchmark.  The challenge would utilize a null test where a third speaker was set up to produce only the difference in sound between the two amplifiers.

At first the third speaker produced a significant amount of distortion however after a couple days of tweaking Carver had reduced the audible difference between the two to zero, even getting the golden ears of the Stereophile writers to agree he had won the challenge.  Carver went on to market the new solid state amp.

This challenge has been discussed on this forum before but this thread made me think of it.  The article can be read here.

The challenge got the attention of the audio community not only because Carver seemed to prove his amp could duplicate the sound of a high end tube amp, but also because it seemed to show that any high end amplifier could be replicated exactly without too much effort.

In  the end, I believe there are great tube amps as well as great solid state amps and it's nice to enjoy whatever floats your boat.