gofar99 Messages: 1949 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi, there are a number of differences. Start with cost, power consumption and efficiency and heat generation. Add in amount of output power available and finally the one that is controversial is sound qualities. All of the first 4 mentioned tend to favor solid state amps. The last one is where the discussion gets murky. In theory any well designed amp should reproduce the source material well. If response figures, noise levels and distortion are equal the sound would logically be the same for either type. However, all things are seldom equal and the results are that they usually sound differently. Not bad or good, just different. So my suggestion is to listen to a few of each type and decide on what you like best. I personally prefer tube ones, but have a number of high end solid state ones as well. Often you will hear that folks say that tube amps have a "warmer" sound and solid state ones more detail sometimes to the point of being analytical. I don't personally share those thoughts (YMMV). I suspect that those comments probably made sense in the early days of solid state amps as the components and designs were not always as good as they are now. To be fair there were a lot of poor tube amps as well. Now both technologies are greatly refined and either type can fit most uses.
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