My setup at home, like most everyone's, is solid state. I have no tubes anywhere. Just this year, my wife finally made me retire the 27" Sony Wega Trinitron TV I had upstairs, the last of the proverbial Mohicans. My argument for the color, contrast ratio, and analog beauty was lost on the resolution, aspect ratio, and size/weight argument. This was all a reality check; offering to give it away on Facebook to the first of my friends to speak up (with free delivery thrown in for the cherry on top) still took about a week. Eventually it found a home in a co-worker's garage, where he wanted to set up a "retro gaming station".
That said, I've been to houses outfitted with tube preamps, and in other cases tube amplifiers, and everyone is generally united in their affection for the sound they put out. It also seems to me that the earlier, the better. China, hoping to get on the bandwagon (and perhaps at this point the leading manufacturer of tubes, by country), is offering amplifiers with tube stages. I've heard some. I have a hard time with these selling them as a cut above a good class A/B rig. Preamps seem to be a different story. Earlier tube amplifiers also seem to be a different story. It's interesting to know that with tubes, you don't actually get their best and warmest performance unless you're pushing them hard. This is why in some cases you'll see guitar amplifiers with settings for varying wattages; you won't actually be running all tubes if you select the lower power setting. Running full bore on a 50W amplifier is enough to seriously make your hair stand on end, so some offer a "wuss" setting of half power, which gets you better sound at a livable level for your prolonged hearing and your neighbors' benefit.
It seems either that tube preamps are generally much more expensive to produce (supply and demand, maybe?) or everyone got the memo that the vinyl revival is in full swing and everything analog is in vogue, so therefore it should be marked up accordingly. Dropping $500 for a stereo preamp seems par for the course, when you can get a more than adequate solid state for less than $100.
Without getting into the rate of diminishing return, I am curious what others think on this. I know for instruments (electric guitar) the sound is incredible and this I attribute to distortion often being the goal. Distortion in this application is good and can be warm and welcome. Perhaps in small doses, interleaved with the music itself, making it more life-like, like vinyl can do is where people come to this conclusion (maybe being too perfect makes sound seem clinical and sterile?)
I also find it interesting a couple people have knowingly postponed their tube purchase until their kids are old enough they don't worry about them reaching out and touching the glowing beauties with curious fingers...
Finally, for the what it's worth department, in my listening room, my California Audio Labs CL-20 player (DVD/HDCD) offers S/PDIF as an output. My custom-built PC also offers Toslink. My Denon AVR-1506 of going on 10 years has a single Toslink input and a couple S/PDIF's, so theoretically my signal to noise ratio from these two sources is infinite, something analog connections can only dream of. This leaves everything to the amplifier and it's D/A converter and subsequent signal path. In other words, having solid state is convenient for me and likely for others as well, so what would those of you who disdain this design do instead (if you're in this camp, I imagine the unbalanced 1/8" jack is an absolute last resort).
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