Who will survive? One last table til I die.

To me, the key here is not whether there may be some slight affects to the amplifer based on speaker reactances, but whether these small effects could even be actually audible, given wider range tolerances in many other parts of the sytem context.

As Audioholics points out, even normal changes in temp, humidity, and barometric pressure in the room makes more of a difference than some of these issues.

Additionally, practically no speaker made is going to have an "in-room" response of within 1db, so all of this brouhaha is virtually immaterial anyway. This output impedance/speaker reactance parameter is nowhere near to defining the outer envelope of system frequency response +/- tolerances in anyone's system. If we want to improve overall system frequency response, we can look elsewhere for the culprit.

If we want to really look for the differences in sound between tube amps and solid state amps, I think it is in the tone. The even-order harmonic distortion profile of certain tube amps(SET) have this profile when playing, not just when clipping. SS amps with wide-rangeing odd-order harmonic distortion profile have this profile when playing, and not just when clipping, too. Since odd-order harmonic distortions are not found in natural musical presentations, even very small amounts can be detected by the ear, and found to be an unconvincing reproduction. There may be other factors too, but I think that this is at the basis of it. Simply my opinion.

Before we jump on the bandwagon about this, is should be noted that push-pull tube amps are also rife with odd-order harmonic distortion, and so are multi-driver loudspeakers with crossovers. So it may not be(is not) just the amp that is causing this in most systems.

I find it interesting that some people want to focus in on a single parameter to back-up their prejudices about tube amps, when it is entirely possible, and even probable that inherent odd-order distortions in transistor amps/multi-driver speakers may be causing far worse sonic problems to real music listening, and they don't even know it. In fact, I find it rather humorous that as they chase a "spec" or "measurement" around, the sonic realism that is provided by a device that "specs worse", and therefore is "not acceptable", could actually be the very thing that they need to give them the convincing musical reproduction that they seek.

Sometimes I just have to wonder.

Tom mentions

...a device that specs worse...

I agree. Esepcially considering how the relevant spec is measured: sine waves.
Hardly conclusive regarding complex signals like music!

I still haven't had a chance to read the articles, but i just want to ask you folks one question. That is, where do you think the technology came from in order to start mass producing solid state devices? I'll give you a hint. They probably didn't find tubes in the inter-galactic time travelling devices at Roswell : ) Sean
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If you want to know what kind of frequency reponse your system is getting into your room you will need a spectrum analyzer. If you are getting on in years, you should also have you ears tested(you could be surprised just by taking the sterophile test cd and playing the frquency sweep section and seeing what frequencies you can't even hear). Once you see the huge peaks and valley's in the frequency response of your room, you may rethink the whole notion of flat from 20-20khz. I contend that was always more of an advertising ploy than indication of how equipment sounds.

From time to time,audio reviewers decide that they need to be more objective. Remember when Peter Aczel of the Audio Critic decided the most important thing about speakers was errors in the time domain. I remember when stereophile decided they were going to publish measurements. They, like all hope to find some correlation between the way components measured and how they actually sound. No doubt TJN thought he was on to something.

Hi: This statement comes from audioholics ( the TWL link ):****" Another mechanism that most certainly can have measurable and audible effects are response errors due to the frequency dependent impedance load presented by the speaker. The higher the output resistance of the source ( amplifier ), the greater the magnitude of the response deviations. "****.

This is my statement in this thread ( the same that I already post on others threads ):

******" The tube amplifiers can't do it, it is impossible by the physics laws), only can function like an equalizer sound reproducer. All the tube amplifiers change their frecuency response with the changes in the impedance of the speakers and this speaker impedance ( normally ) change with the frecuencies,...."***.

As you can see audiholics agree with Mr. Norton, they speak
on the same subject. ( TWL: I never speak of damping factor ).

The problem with this critical issue is that anyone can hear the high degradation on the signal reproduction.

Now, for anyone can " see " how heavy is that signal degradation: you can go to Stereophile tests on speakers and " see " the electrical impedance diagram where you can watch the multiple frecuency deviation that has the speaker: the tube amplifiers has almost that same deviations ( depend of it output impedance ), only the SS amplifiers can do the job with out that signal degradation.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.