This is a wide controversial subject. From when I was doing service work on
high end amplifiers, I found the high end solid state amplifiers to be very
accurate. When doing characteristics tests, such as distortion, phase,
frequency response and power handling tests, just to mention a few, the
solid state amplifiers came out on top.

The tube amplifiers generally have softer clipping when driven a little too
hard. They also tend to be higher in their harmonic distortion, and phase
distortion. These attributes tend to give the tube amplifier a less harsh
type of sound, which is very pleasing to may audio files.

For musical instrument playing, such as a guitar, my preference would be a
good heavy duty tube amplifier. For listening to my favourite CD's and
records, my first preference would be a good solid state amplifier.

I particularly like the CMOS type amplifiers. They tend to have a similar
type of gain response as the high end tube amplifier, but also have the
other characteristics of the solid state amplifier.



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JANA
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"tai fu" wrote in message
...
So is there any difference between using tube amps for listening to music
than solid state? I heard there were a bunch of double blind tests and
people could not tell the difference. I know there is a huge difference when
it comes to guitar amps because tubes distort differently than solid state,
but now we're talking about within the amp's headroom, is there a
difference?

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TAI FU