The big advantage tubes have over solid state is that they are *far* more linear. Their gain characteristic is many times better than a transistor or integrated circuit. They also overload in a much more sonically benign fashion, tending towards compression rather than clipping.
Most solid state amplification employs feedback (and lots of it) to cure the nonlinear gain ills. The closest you can get to a tube is by using JFETs open loop. They're pretty good, but still not in the same league as tubes.
On the other hand, most tube circuits require coupling caps. There is, as several of you have pointed out, no perfect design, and they all exhibit artful compromise.
But as Atmasphere points out, the micro details and very small signal information is better recovered via tubes. This is not just opinion, but a technical limitation of topology. The exception would be an open-loop class A gain stage using a reasonably linear active device such as a JFET.
jh
Most solid state amplification employs feedback (and lots of it) to cure the nonlinear gain ills. The closest you can get to a tube is by using JFETs open loop. They're pretty good, but still not in the same league as tubes.
On the other hand, most tube circuits require coupling caps. There is, as several of you have pointed out, no perfect design, and they all exhibit artful compromise.
But as Atmasphere points out, the micro details and very small signal information is better recovered via tubes. This is not just opinion, but a technical limitation of topology. The exception would be an open-loop class A gain stage using a reasonably linear active device such as a JFET.
jh