differences between tube and solid state designs

My experience with tube power amps is somewhat limited (having more experience with tube preamps) but none-the-less my take is & agree with Mrtennis that some of the newer tube designs do sound more like very good solid state with a higher noise floor, but some exceptions exist. I believe that the warmth encountered on the old tube designs is no more than some type of distortion. Given that, what benefits could one possibly realize from a quality tube design? I think the answer is & will always be they just simply allow the listener to hear deeper into the musical landscape, fleshing out more details. Plus you have the ability to change the sound by tube rolling. When you compare tube to midfi solid state there always seemed to be improvements in soundstaging & transparency, not to mention less grain. But regrdless how good some tube gear is, it's weakest link, aside from how it is engineered/designed, will always be the tube types used.

Any time you have a vacuum, you have a weak link. I think tubes are inherently better to listen to, and replacing every few years and a slightly higher noise floor is a small price to pay for dynamic realism. Considering how noisey the world is these days anyway, it's kind of an academic problem unless you live in the middle of nowehere, and still the hiss is, on my system, unnoticeable except at *very* high volume and with no music playing. So I take the bad with the good.

Biomimetic, I agree with you that the benefits of tubes far outweigh their shortcomings. To this day I have always felt the need to have tubes somewhere in my system. Once done the music becomes more involving & enjoyable. However I have encountered a few solid state designs that are darn good.

On my system there is a more then slight diffrence on how tube amps handle"air in the highs" the soild state just dont get it right. Solid state amps Ive used, threshold 550E, several Large krells (10K plus) Plinius SA250IV, Audio resaerch D350, aragon,ect.
Tube amps are Rogue 120,120M,150, Zeus, hurricanes,Cary V12, Vtl 300,450. ect.
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about solid state is the Problems in the highend.

I know what you mean about high end... it took me a while to see how tubes also, to my mind, handle the low end better. The hard clipping of solid state can really take you out of the music, the movie, whatever. Soft clipping, and a certain "trueness" in the staging of the bass, aka holography in creating a tone to the room the music is in, I think it has to do with sympathetic chord reproduction, is what I appreciate as much now.