Flyski, there are many reviews on the Stratos, most all being very positive. All though this particular excerpt from your above mentioned Stratos review would lead one to believe that the Stratos is certainly not tubelike inspite of the fact the reviewer's final conclusions are very positive. There are other reviewers whose conclusions are quite different and I will give you an example of this shortly. From my own personal experience and in my system the Stratos exhibits a warmer sound than other solid state amps I haved tried but yet still has some tube-like qualities without the solid state nasties. Like any amp the speakers & preamp used will have some effect on anyones final conclusions including those of pro-reviewers.
From IAR Master Guide to the best of 1998.
Odyssey Design Group Stratos:
This power amp is a sonic miracle at its $995 price and an easy IAR Best Buy. We (and then others) have praised the sonics of Symphonic Line power amps in the past. They sound very transparent, fast, and clean, with capable extension to the frequency extremes, all the typical strengths of solid state. Yet throughout the midranges and trebles where virtually all other solid state products run into trouble of one sort or another (too glazed and hard in some frequency region, or too defocused and smeared), the big symphonic Line amps stay eminently neutral giving a very natural portrayal of music by straddling the line between solid sound and tube sound (what we called the hybrid sound). Thus the sonics of the big Syphonic line amps give you the best of solid state sound combined with at least some of the best aspects of good tube sound.
Finally their opinion of Class 1 (class 1 being the best) amps are Odyssey Design & Plinius & rated musically natural. Some Class 2 amps are Levinson 33H & Krell FPB 300 and try valiantly to smooth and soften the hard edge typical of solid state, attempting to sound musical but instead they succeed only in being veiled and defocused.
I'm very certain that no solid state amp will have a 100% of the tube sound but some will come closer than others. So which reviewer is right, you decide.
From IAR Master Guide to the best of 1998.
Odyssey Design Group Stratos:
This power amp is a sonic miracle at its $995 price and an easy IAR Best Buy. We (and then others) have praised the sonics of Symphonic Line power amps in the past. They sound very transparent, fast, and clean, with capable extension to the frequency extremes, all the typical strengths of solid state. Yet throughout the midranges and trebles where virtually all other solid state products run into trouble of one sort or another (too glazed and hard in some frequency region, or too defocused and smeared), the big symphonic Line amps stay eminently neutral giving a very natural portrayal of music by straddling the line between solid sound and tube sound (what we called the hybrid sound). Thus the sonics of the big Syphonic line amps give you the best of solid state sound combined with at least some of the best aspects of good tube sound.
Finally their opinion of Class 1 (class 1 being the best) amps are Odyssey Design & Plinius & rated musically natural. Some Class 2 amps are Levinson 33H & Krell FPB 300 and try valiantly to smooth and soften the hard edge typical of solid state, attempting to sound musical but instead they succeed only in being veiled and defocused.
I'm very certain that no solid state amp will have a 100% of the tube sound but some will come closer than others. So which reviewer is right, you decide.