what makes a tube sound the way it does?

Tubes overload easily. Tubes sound nice in overload. They act like a compressor.

I gotta comment here: transistors and tubes overload equally easily. Neither has any particular dynamic range over the other. The rest of the above quote is true of tubes in mild overload and is something transistors do not do.

Tube amps are voltage driven which produce even harmonics,solid state is current driven which produces uneven harmonics.That pretty much sums it up,right.

OTL stands for output transformerless

No one talks about what I believe is an important factor in the difference between the sound of tubes and transistors. Tubes have a far superior dielectric, or lack thereof, because they have a near vacuum surrounding the conducting elements. The signal is not impeded or impinged upon by anything, not even air.

Transistors or semiconductors require the signal to pass through layers of solid materials (silicon, plastic, metal) which are far from ideal dielectrics. Just as a cable with a poor dielectric sounds closed-in and clogged, so do transistors when compared with vacuum tubes.

Tube amps are voltage driven which produce even harmonics,solid state is current driven which produces uneven harmonics.That pretty much sums it up,right.

Is this true? I'm no expert. Just been reading up on tubes lately, because I'm considering moving over to the dark side from SS. I've read that tubes produce both even and odd harmonics, and in push-pull tube amps the even harmonics (all of them?) cancel out leaving odd harmonics like a SS amp. I may be off on this, like I said I'm no expert. In any event, they produce some magical sound.