Tube sound Comes, mainly, from? Pre or Power?

I see. Thanks a million. Of course I will have to experiment by myself. The prospect of biasing seems rather painless, a dealer showed me how to do it on a rogue cronus and I have had a pro do an old guitar amp for me; also rather painless. I couldn't imagine that it may be more complicated to do on other designs. Though, I must admit, the idea of having to replace power tubes frequently over the life of the product (I listen a lot) and experiencing variable performance from these tubes is not too appealing. I suppose I would need to prove to myself that the juice is worth the squeeze. Thanks again for the input.

I ask you to listen to my advice and spare yourself endless tweakling and other manuervers to get tube magic.
1. The modern tube amp probably will not to sound like the vintage tube sound you may remember. The best are quick dynamic and stage like nothing else.
2. TVAD is quite right as is an old friend who is a very very knowledable respected Agon memberTRELJA. He told me that Kondso San was right nothing is unimportant but after years watching me pver 6 years make a number of dumb decisions finally said.
The ONLY way to get tube magic which I find is the layered halographic imagery The single most critical obvious sonic impact is to use a TUBE ONLY power amp with an emphatic period. My experience was an outright epiphany that has kept me very happy now for two + years.
3.I had been an all tube preamp as is the opinion of the great masses of those who don't know, they don't know, Tube preamps and SS power will not, and does not accomplish the beauty and unique qualities that tubes amps are capable of. That combo to repeat misses the critical and essential elements needed to get tube sonics.
I bought another tubed pre a simple 6SN7 pre, only $300 used just for use as a tool I thought would serve as a sound check to test my 6SN7s for noise. I was dumbfounded and delighted with it- utterly astonished and confused. I askd a couple of audio friends to listen Both said wow your speakers sound unbelievably good these days. Did I do something to them? No it's the amps.
One of them bought them after struggling with sinophobia.
They are Consonace 800 monoblocks. They run 2 6922 inputs I rolled to CV 2943s NOS Mullard Mil Spec, a 5687 driver rolled to tungsol the sock out put is 4 6CA7 EH tetrodes which sound great in this application. The give a way is the 75 wpc or 78 depending on the manual you get and a total upacked weight of 80lbs each = big trannies. They run two pairs of the output tubes in PP paralllel class A. They drive JM Focal 936 Electras with 2 X 8 inch woofers a piece no problem!

4.The tube any where in the chain is FALSE. You will not know unless you use a tube power amp.
5.Finally I would normally use IMHO. HoweverI am rarely as certain about anything as I am about this. I studiously avoid absolutes as a rule. I just could notstand the incorrect no matter how widely people want to believe it wrong answer. I didn't want you to think that a tube pre is the answer.

P.S. See the add some one posted a day or two ago for the better model 800s they have a switch to run pure triode. The price ridiculously low. I don't know him and have no conflict of interest to disclose.
The price he wants is so low, that I wish I could get another pair and run them as a vertical biamp but the top in triode..

I would agree with most of the gentlemen here and state that IMO the amplifier leaves the most sonic influence to the sound.
If you like tubes stay with a tube amp as in my experience there are no SS amps that sound like tube amps.

cheers

What then is the rational behind tube pre + Solid power

Apart from the fact that there are many who believe that that combination can provide the best sound (and I am NOT one of them, as I indicated), and apart from the practicality/ease of use factors alluded to above, I think that perhaps the most frequently applicable rationale would be that for some speakers a solid state power amp is simply the best match.

Solid state power amps typically have lower output impedances than tube power amps, which makes them more suited to speakers that have low impedances and/or impedances which vary widely as a function of frequency.

Also, speakers with low efficiency/sensitivity may require more power (and/or current) than is practical or cost effective to obtain from a tube amp.

As I say, though, I am not in that camp. I consider amplifier-friendly impedance characteristics, and moderate-to-high efficiency, to be important criteria in speaker selection, in large part because of the resulting flexibility in choice of amplifier.

Regards,
-- Al

Tvad, Mechans and Almarg have basically said it all and yes, it is the amp for reasons already given.