Tube rectification is nice if you can do it! Newer tube amps have bigger power supplies and so can easily damage a tube rectifier during warm-up. So a tube rectifier usually means that the capacitance in the power supply is limited to a small value that might have been considered adequate about 40 years ago, but likely not in a lot of modern designs, especially higher-powered amps.
Tube rectifiers are nice due to their inherent low noise while converting AC to DC. Silicon rectifiers have a commutation (switching) noise that can contribute to the background noise of the amplifier. Commutation noise can be substantially reduced by small networks bypassing the rectifier's junctions, but usually this is not 100% removal. But generally semiconductor rectifiers can survive the large current inrush that is common in a lot of high end amplifiers. That extra capacitance of bigger supplies translates almost directly to better sound, so you can see that there **can** be tradeoffs.
In an SET I think tube rectifiers would be nice- this is an application where they can work quite well.
In amps that have too much capacitance for a tube rectifier to survive, you can often get a lot of the 'tube rectifier sound' by using superior semiconductors. HEXFRED rectifiers are a good example- the ultra fast/ultra soft recovery characteristics of HEXFRED rectifiers approaches that of the tube rectifiers, although they do not have the variable voltage sag with current that is also part of that sound. You really don't want the voltage to sag as you draw more current from the power supply!
In a class A amplifier, the voltage sag issue is not a concern as the draw on the device is constant. In a class AB amp a good semiconductor can actually sound better!
Tube rectifiers are nice due to their inherent low noise while converting AC to DC. Silicon rectifiers have a commutation (switching) noise that can contribute to the background noise of the amplifier. Commutation noise can be substantially reduced by small networks bypassing the rectifier's junctions, but usually this is not 100% removal. But generally semiconductor rectifiers can survive the large current inrush that is common in a lot of high end amplifiers. That extra capacitance of bigger supplies translates almost directly to better sound, so you can see that there **can** be tradeoffs.
In an SET I think tube rectifiers would be nice- this is an application where they can work quite well.
In amps that have too much capacitance for a tube rectifier to survive, you can often get a lot of the 'tube rectifier sound' by using superior semiconductors. HEXFRED rectifiers are a good example- the ultra fast/ultra soft recovery characteristics of HEXFRED rectifiers approaches that of the tube rectifiers, although they do not have the variable voltage sag with current that is also part of that sound. You really don't want the voltage to sag as you draw more current from the power supply!
In a class A amplifier, the voltage sag issue is not a concern as the draw on the device is constant. In a class AB amp a good semiconductor can actually sound better!