When to go solid state vs. vacuum?

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 :-)

By what margin do you prefer tubes? If it’s by a considerable margin (like me) then create a list of tube friendly speakers to audition. Keep in mind that a lot of speaker manufactures claim that their speakers are tube friendly because they don’t want to lose that market - and yes, they will play music with tubes, and probably sound pretty good; but when you hear claims that tubes are, overly euphonic, lack dynamics or can’t do bass, that’s because they have been paired with speakers that require the amplifier to operate outside its ideal ratings - and that happens a lot. Tube amplifiers are not nearly as flexible as solid state amps, but inside their comfort zone can be just as lively. Tube watts are expensive. Take that into consideration when determining the specifications of your speakers. You can save a bundle in tubes by keeping the efficiency up. Ask Charles1dad about 300b tubes - you don’t want to need eight of those babies.

If you just kind of prefer tubes but solid state can float your boat, my advise is to go solid state - unless your a pyro.

People paring 3 watt single ended tube amps with 84db 2 ohm speakers to listen to Mahler or Norwegian Death Metal are not to be allowed out if the house without supervision. I'm sticking to what I said...especially the part about "very inefficient" (that means LOW SENSITIVITY) being pretty much the major thing you need to be concerned about with tube amp/speaker matching in most cases. That sentence had at least 2 wimpy qualifiers so I'm safe. Using my carefully thought out and scientifically absolutely accurate and appropriate guidelines gleaned from years of madly stumbling around, you are limited to exactly 126,462 speaker designs that will sound great with any reasonably designed tube amp. Don't let techno geeks keep you from trying things...tube amps are fun (involving...both musically, and by forcing user maintenance "tube swap freak" characteristics out of you...you and your tube amp are IN IT TOGETHER), don't have to be expensive, and when your friends see a tube amp in your house they will think you're cooler than you actually are.