When to go solid state vs. vacuum?

Kooshballa,
You`ve gotten some good replies,The bottom line is it`s speaker dependent. Some are meant to be driven by by SS amps and other speakers truly come alive with tubes.Narrow your list of speaker and then learn which type of amp will mate best with it.I generally find a good tube power amp sounds better with more realism but it`s ultimately what your own ears tell you.
Best of Luck,

Thank you for all these replies!

Speaker matching? Who can do THAT these days? Unless the speakers are very inefficient or designed by idiots they should work, although tone preference is personal. You can buy a factory upgraded 60wpc Jolida for half the cost of a Primaluna, and the "EZ bias" is simple, accurate (I check this with a meter because I like burning my fingers), and makes a case for NOT having auto-bias (whatEVER). I stuck KT120s in mine with no issues at all. So for a little over a grand you get an amp that has 4 and 8 ohm taps, accepts XLR and RCA inputs, and kicks ass. If you need more juice you can run 2 of 'em in mono for double the power and turn off the heat in the listening room...maybe even use the extra BTUs for warming food or small smelting projects. Get a REL for bass...do all of this now and report back immediately. Go...get out of here...

Wolf, I don`t quite see your point regarding speaker matching. Speakers that have low ohm loads,steep phase angles and low sensitivity generally mate better with SS amps,

Tube amps will be better served with higher and relatively flat load impedance,minimal-modest phase angle and higher sensitivity rating. I understand that our experiences may just be different.
Regards,

In summer I use Lamm ML2.1 because they aren't hot, in Winter I prefer the
heating from my M1.2R and I can wear shorts..... Frequencies touching the skin
give a closer connection to the Performance :-)