Switched From Tubes To SS???Glad You Did???

Whart I too have a small vinyl collection. It's a chore double, sometimes triple or quad dipping into the same titles :(

I already have the Shelby Lynne on LP and CD, but couldn't resist the new audiophile pressing on LP and SACD.

I know.. what a sucker :D

For more contemporary music, I recently got Amy Winehouse, Nirvana on LP. Heck I even got Nirvana off HD Tracks.

But I digress.

Anyway, the Ayon CD2S was my first dip into tubes. I shortly upgraded to the Ayon CD5S. Then I went overboard with an Audio Research Reference 5 which was later upgraded to the 5SE. I still use the Ayon as a CDP/Pre on a second system.

The truth is I am not into tubes all the way. I like dynamics and detail, and I found the Ayon + ARC was too off pace for my liking. So I ended up using only one tube gear in the chain (preamp) and have SS CDP (EMM Labs XDS1) and SS power amps (Electrocompaniet Nemos).

Although we haven't gone completely solid state, our system at the lake still uses tubes, the main home system has slowly gone all SS . Tubes have the smooth, liquid advantage, but solid state will always be superior in clarity, dynamic swing and definition. I've never looked at tubes as fun, more of a nuisance for folks that just want to listen to music.
I've pondered over which is superior for many years, in the end it doesn't really matter, it would be churlish to think we could live without either..

Wolf, no malice intended, it is hard to tell from the Internet, because you can't see the smile, the arch of the eyebrow or the wink.

Doggie, despite what i had heard and read about how bad the lost highway
pressing of shelby lynne was, i bought one standard pressing and one
audiophile pressing (I sorta hate to encourage audiophile pressings, if i can
avoid them, and have been digging through original issues of lot's of stuff,
finding it sounds better sometimes). Anyway, the lost highway 'standard'
pressing is, as many people have said, virtually unlistenable, it is noisy, it
sounds like misstracking, and although I thought this had been brought to
the attention of the label quite a while ago , and thought they 'fixed' it in
later pressings, the standard one i bought through Amazon a week ago - it
was on clear vinyl- was awful. The audiophile pressing is totally fine. So, it
seems like in some cases, you have to pay the premium for new vinyl to
get something that is useable. And despite what people say about lousy
original pressings and better mastering on the new issues, many of the
older original pressings sound great, even if they are 'thin' vinyl and were
pressed off by the tens of thousands when the medium was still a
mainstream commodity.
I also get a kick out of how many times some of these audiophile
warhorses get reissued. Tea for the Tillerman 19? (Like a bad horror
movie). My island pink label which i bought from a homeless guy on the
street for a dollar or two, sounds better than the UHQR (which I bought
new) and every other reissue of that record i have heard.
best,

I never wink unless something unwanted gets in my eye, but that's more of a blink. Also, at my house on the lake (which doesn't actually exist), we always look at tubes as fun. I think we're just wired for fun around here. I also think car tires are "fun" which may serve to illustrate my threshold of fun.