Mijostyn, I am curious what you mean when you use the phrase "match by a few ohms", where you applied the term to SUTs.
As to tubes vs SS, I think you would have trouble supporting the notion that the best tube phono stages are categorically less expensive than the best SS phono stages. For example, the Ypsilon VPS 100 costs $30K and only develops 39db of gain. VAC make some high end units, too, and there are others I don’t know about. I know that Channel D make a $90K SS phono that does both current and voltage gain, and I don’t know how much some of the stratospherically expensive SS stages, like Soulution (sp?) and others cost. (Has anyone heard any of those?) I think Raul mentioned someone brought the top of the line Channel D unit to his home, and they compared it to his 3180 Phonolinepreamp; results in his group of listeners favored the latter unit, and I believe it because the 3160 is the best sounding SS phono stage I have ever heard in my home environment. Which is to say it’s the only one I have auditioned that I could live with (and am living with) long term, among those I have heard. I’m a tube guy at heart but with some qualifications, like OTLs only, for amplification and a preference for tube/SS hybrid phono stages to achieve high phono gain. This is a bit different from the ARC approach (and which is used by a myriad of other manufacturers) of using a FET to add gain at the front end; I prefer a hybrid cascode input for high gain. On the low end, the market is replete with inexpensive SS phono stages (less than $500) that people swear by and which typically offer high gain. Op amps make it easy and cheap to do. But could we (you and I) live with any of those? The only tube phono in that low price range I can think of is the Bellari, and it’s MM only. Anyway, I have avoided SUTs for 45 years so far, but I never would say not to take that route. I am sure it can work beautifully. (Which is also what you said.)
