****Tube amps can be fast? That's a new one for me. I clearly have a lot to learn. Can someone please elaborate on the op's statement?****
Of course they can be; it's surprising to me that anyone would think that tube amps, as a group, can not be. If fact, while I am not prepared to say that I think that tube amps, as a group, are faster than ss amps, I can say that I have heard more ss amps that sound lifeless than tube amps that do. While many ss amps may seem to be "faster" than many tube amps due to the fact that tube amps tend to sound rounder, more dimensional, and less "lean", they give the impression of speed. However, IMO, a good tube amp tends to be more dynamically sophisticated, and subtle. What gives music a sense of aliveness is HOW the music gets from point A to point B on the dynamics scale. Is it done seamlessly? IOW, can you hear every subtle incremental increase (or decrease) in volume from point A to point B? IMO, tubes, as a group, do a superior job of that. But part of the equation is the music being listened to. Classical music tends to have more dynamic subtlety than most commercial music. Anyone who doubts that need only compare the softest moment in a well recorded classical symphony to the loudest, and consider that there is a practically endless number of dynamic gradations in between that are an essential part of the music. Most electric music has a much narrower dynamic range with fewer dynamic gradations. If one listens primarily to rock music, it is much easier to not notice this dynamic compression.
