SS vs Tube: What do you hear?

Tubes V. SS is like color V. black and white photos. But the above comment about proper matching of components is important. Black and white photos can be very impressive, and SS can sound quite good with the right associated componenets.

I appreciate all of your responses. This afternoon I spent 2.5 hours in Audio Vision in SF, where the owner Antonio did a great job of demoing his equipment at my request. I listened to five different setups. The Audion Silver Integrated tube amp with Arcam CD player, and Reynoud Trente speakers gave me my first in store reaction of 'I want to walk out of here with this stuff'. My observation about the difference between ss & tube in this environment was that the ss had a depth of sound stage of about 1 foot, and the tube soundstage had a depth of about 4 feet. My perception of the music was more like it was coming from a stage, not off a wall. (Best description I can do). Anyway, the tubes had me involved in an excited way which was clearly different from the ss system.

Peter Aczel is definately deaf, and that is all I need to say on this subject!

Trelja, I think the reference to tube type sound in a solid state amp is a reference to the solid state amp having some 2nd order distortion similar to a tube amp. This 2nd order distortion is what gives the tube amp it's inherent sweetness or as you put it "real" sound. I can't wait until the day that a solid state amp can have the same transfer function (sound the same) as a tube amp. For me it is a matter of laziness as I am getting tired of retubing and rebiasing at a fairly high cost. I am considering switching to solid state again but I am not getting rid of my ARC Classic 60, just in case. Ciao

GMKOWAL: I own both Spectral and ARC (I chose those two because of sound quality and the company's reputation for service), most of the time I run the Spectral, extremely neutral and extemely hi-rez. The ARC is warmer sounding, but not as neutral and not as hi-rez. The soundstage is slightly larger for the ARC, but imaging is slightly more diffuse for the ARC than the Spectral. I am an old codger and also getting more lazy as time goes on, so biasing/replacing tubes is getting to be a pain. If anybody is looking to replace their tubes for ss take a look at Spectral.