gofar99 Messages: 1950 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi, As long as there are tubes and solid state gear they will be talking about it. I have a considerable amount of each. In my main system there are 4 Oddblocks that provide the muscle to the speakers. But there is no way I would replace the solid state electronic crossover that splits the sound to the amps. It would take 50 tubes and not be as good. Same thing on my main turntable. I can't even imagine trying to power the motor (an ex Dual 701 ESD1000) with tubes. The heat alone would require its own cooling system. The issue is not so simple in other parts of the system. I have tube and solid state phono preamps. The SS ones gather dust. FM is done by a really slick vintage Sony tuner. Tiny thing with only one sealed metal box in it. The thing made the "B" list for Stereophile. Incredible sensitivity, sound etc and OBTW gets HD FM. No way I would swap that for a tube unit. It would be a serious step down.
Now that we opened Pandora's box... the argument of discrete SS components vs IC ones. That is nearly equal in pros and cons. It includes the thoughts of some negative feed back, none or lots (as with ICs). Chomp on that one a while.
My overall take is that (one) there are many ways to do most things (two) each of us has to decide what works best for ourselves.