Tube sound with no tubes

I know i wont get the exact sound out of ss preamp.Maybe i should have said a pre-amp with no edgy, analitical sound to it.I know there some great SS gear to be had and using a tube preamp for years I have gotten use to the sound.Some of the SS preamps I have heared sounded very sterile to me.My current preamp is a Sonic Frontiers Line-3/se.

another BIG tom evans fan. i went from a tube phono pre and pre to the tom evans groove+srx and vibe/pulse2. this solid state front runs through his amazing linear b monoblock tube amps. those 16 el84's fulfill all of my tube desire.

how much do you want to spend montana audio has a 12,000 dollar preamp that sounds sweet like tubes but has the slam of solid state. go to the web site and look

Spaz, if you want to avoid the stereotypical over analytical, edgy SS sound, I think you can do so easily with many of today's SS offerings. You would certainly be fine with a Pass pre. If you want an SS tube to sound like a tube pre, that is another thing altogether, and I think for the most part you can't do that; which doesn't mean you can't find some excellent sounding SS pres, they simply have a different signature compared with tubes.

Spaz, you didn't tell us your speakers, but if you want a full bottom end with little to no roll-off, choose a tube pre very carefully. The Calypso's output impedance raises to about 3,500 ohms at 20hz, so even your 20K input impedance (balanced) may not be enough for full-range speakers. The Calypso did not provide a solid bottom end with my DNA 500, which has input impedance of 10K ohms. OTOH, your Line3SE has output impedance of just less than 100 ohms, and should be fine. I owned both, and liked the Line 3SE better than the Calypso with my McCormack - the Calypso sounded too neutral without enough body in my system. The Line 3 SE is a pretty good preamp, if you want a large step up, you are going to have to pay a bit to get better, and not just different. There are also some very good SS preamps out there, but not many that have dimensionality that challanges a good tube preamp.