Solid state; when would you use tubes?

I agree

Having owned pretty much every high end SS amp and preamp, I am now all tubes and wouldn't have it any other way. I will never go back to SS.

ARC Ref 3 preamp is IMO the finest preamp I have ever heard.

I am one of those loonies that uses an SET mono...specifically Vladimir Lamm's ML 2.1 which at 18 wpc drive my 750 lb Wilson X-2's with ease. I can also pump up their volume to ear bleeding SPL before they clip.

The sound that these components produce is for "my" ears as good as it gets.

This is a nice thread with some interesting and thoughtful answers. Some people put some serious time and thought into their posts. I just want to talk about my journey from all SS in the 90's to today. I actually had well modded Citation V (tube)power amp at one point. Later I had a tube pre and a warm CJ SS power amp. I swore this was the ultimate combo tonally, although I wanted a tube power amp, as a power hog I could not afford a high power tube amp. Today I have a passive line stage connected to my tubed Trivista CDP and tube phono stage. I connected my CDP direct to my amp when working on my preamp and learned the output from it was too much! What this meant was my tube preamp was really an attenuator! Since my tube preamp had tons of gain it also introduced a noise floor. This is why I go passive today. Another reason is the MF Trivistas(tubed CDP) huge low impedence output. Not all source components are suitable for passive. Neither are all power amps. Sensative high impedence power amps are best. My two CJ's are 100K ohm input impedence and senstative. Removing the unneeded active linestage was like removing the scrim in front of a movie screen. I also did a lot of cable and power improvements which all make a wonderful difference. Good cables as both power and interconnects really improved the top end and made it smoother and much more detailed. So my answer is I use tubes on my sources and in my current biamp setup I would use tubes on the HF side if I could afford something nice. Don't underestimate cabling for improving sound as well.My system is much less edgy sounding today because of these upgrades.

ET

The right dealer can take you through this journey. They can set up a speaker system and then change out the electronic components one-by-one. In my case they went from an all solid state system to all tubes stepping through various combinations in between.

I now have an all tube system.

In my experience, the very best 2-channel systems have all tubes.

When I added a turntable, I got a tube phono preamp and have been very pleased with that addition

Just a quick addendum on the absurd notion of letting the more limited selections of speakers dictate the type of system you choose: I would no more let the fact that there are only a few types of performance tires available for my large dual-sport motorcycle deter me from my strong preference for that particular bike, as I would let limited speaker selection determine what type of audio system I choose. The fact is the tires made for my bike work extraordinarily well since they are designed specifically for it and the applications it is used for, as many of the speakers (and there are many) designed for low-powered amplification do work superbly well in that application since they are often designed specifically with that in mind. Now if you happen to be in the crowd that insists that they have speakers that resemble public trash receptacles available among their selection, or those that look like toy soldiers beating drums, or need to know that you can make your own personal contribution to raping the rain forests of some specific exotic veneer so your friends can look on and nod in knowing admiration, well then I guess you don't need to go there, and I'd suggest vacationing and Fernando's Hideaway. But if you don't necessarily need your listening room to look like a state park picnic ground, or March of the Wooden Soldiers, or complement the burl wood on your Lamborghini’s dashboard, then do remain open to the world of various forms of low-powered amplification.

Marco