Switching to solid state amp?

A couple of thoughts:
SS amps have some realistic advantages. 
None are created equally and specifications are really no indicator of sound quality or sound characteristics. Much of the time the Loudspeakers that are mated with a particular amplifier are the most important consideration. Ask yourself why is that happening? 
Begin with a thorough examination of your speakers specifications with as much information that you can garner.
Look for a SS amplifier that is less complex than more. Simple well executed single ended designs are generally advantageous and less costly.
Sometimes a loudspeaker will sound so much better with one particular amplifier than anything else, magic.
I would finally recommend that you consider contacting your loudspeaker manufacturer and inquire about the amplifier(s) that they use to great effect.
Good luck!

For about 17 years I was basically using tube Manley Stingray. They drive very well Thiel CS3.6 speakers with a  natural and open overall performance. Since a few years ago, I have two more amps, which are solid state, but both give tube-like soft sound. A moderate Arcam A90, a good deal  for the price, and Mcintosh MA5200 with Thiel CS6 speakers. So far, I am quite satisfied with Mcintosh  sound. It is notably more clean than that of Stingray, with slightly less intensive but good natural base, the soundstage is I think also better (it sounds perhaps less "aggressive" than Audio Research tube amps).

I would not accept such point of view, say 5 year ago though...  

I second Lak’s suggestion above to look at Plinius. I have an SA-103 in the same rack with a VAC 300.1a, switching back and forth depending on mood. The Plinius more than holds its own. It does not have quite the HF extension and sparkle of the VAC (that’s a high bar), but it delivers well enough in those areas and really nails the mids and bass. A big plus, to my mind, is the ability to switch between Class A and Class A/B with a button on the front. You can leave it idling in A/B with little power draw, then flip it to Class A for serious listening. Great for the hot summer months, and to be a little greener than Class A typically allows, though it does raise the noise floor somewhat. I run it with a VAC Phi Beta preamp or a Bent AVC passive. Works greater with both, though I’ve taken to using the Bent more often with this amp.

I bought my SA-103 used and then had it upgraded by Vince Galbo, who is the US warranty tech for Plinius and used to be the importer. This brings a lot more refinement and extension to its already-excellent sound. If you look around you can generally get a used 103 for $5K or so; add the Galbo upgrades for around $1,500, and you have a deeply satisfying SS amp with power, grace, and versatility at a very nice price.

I should add that I have a couple other tube-based systems running, too, one built around a SET 2A3 amp and the other a push-pull EL84. Even in the face of this very tubey competition, the Plinius is a highly enjoyable amp in its system, providing the depth and palpability I love about tubes.

After a bunch of years of tube, I gulped and bought a Hegel H160. First solid state ever other than a few Rega that were place holders. 

I like it. A lot. My phono is still tube, but the sound is shimmery and clear. 

You our also may be interested in an LSA Statement hybrid dual-mono integrated. Beautiful sound. 

Speaking in very general terms, I have found that tubes often have a "rightness" in the treble that I often, but not always have found lacking in solid state. I would almost call it a "phasey" character that keeps cymbal taps and bells from sounding clear and open. In my experience single ended and class A push pull amps often do not suffer this.  Ralph, maybe you could expand on this as your amps seem to excel in this area. 

Bruce

One of the very best low-power solid state amps available can be built for well under $1000, See: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=138229.0

If you are not comfortable slinging solder and drilling faceplates you can hire a builder; Radu Tarta of CT builds a lot of SE tube amps yet is impressed with this little SS build. His site is https://simplepleasuretubeamps.wordpress.com/

I have two and they are absolutely amazing; just as enjoyable as my old Audio Note Kit One 300B amp.

I agree with some comments above that matching your amp and preamp is still the most important factor and the only sure way about this is of course to listen to it.

Athough I obviously not tried all the combinaisons suggested above, my personal experience is pointing towards YBA with their classic series. YBA1, YBA2, and if you are ok with only 50W YBA3.

The company's founder Yves Bernard André brought two distinct technologies that make solid state sound very tubelike:
-) double C transformer that is exclusive to YBA. This transformer besides producing very low noise is also slow, that might look like a disadvantage but that slow reaction is a major part of making these amps soud very much tubelike.
-) he also got his own amplification class, the "alpha class" with is prety much a lower heat A class.  

In all the solid state amp I've tried YBA is the closes to tubes

depending on your wattage requirements, klaus at odyssey audio builds amazing amps at great prices. i recently took delivery of a kismet and am just loving the sound. powerful, detailed, beautiful bloom - not overwhelming amounts. overall, love it more than my ayon spirit 3.

I second the vote for and highly recommend Clayton Audio M300 or S2000.
You won’t miss tubes with Clayton, although I do keep a VAC Renaissance 5 preamp in front of the Clayton for even greater sound. All the best!

I will look at the Octave it could be a good choice.  From what I have learned about the Diablo 120 the build and parts are quite equal to the Diablo 300 but the 300 is a brute.   I am sure the transformer is beefier but both have the same house sound.

One could make a case to move from tubes to SS because they prefer the sound of a SS amp as that is a decision based on personal preference. One can also make a case that they don't want to pay for tube replacements. That is also valid with amps with expensive tubes (ie. 845's or 300b's) but if one is careful in choosing a tube amp they can buy one that doesn't use expensive tubes.

But to say one wants to go back to SS because they are easier to maintain or are more reliable is not valid. A point-to-point wired tube amp, with no printed circuit boards is one of the most straight forward designs to diagnose and repair.

In addition, Diablo 300 DAC option is much more expensive, and you can have both phono stage and DAC in it, Diablo 120 is either/or only.

@inna   Thanks for the added info and clarification. That's good to know, despite the price differential.

Anyone who has heard both?

Russians have been making great tubes for ages. They still do. There are also excellent Chinese tubes.
As for the future of tube equipment, I don't know. It might be doomed, it might be not. There are enough good tubes for our lifetime, though, just will be getting more expensive, perhaps.

david_ten, this is just my tentative assumption, not based on any experience or science but only on my impression in differences between the designer's presentation of both. Flemming Rasmussen obviously likes his Diablo 300 and considers it his achievement in the designing of an integrated amp. Diablo 120 presentation sounded like - it is an excellent integrated, better than previous generation Atilla, but..
However, this is my impression and speculation, that's all.

@inna  Can you or others provide more detailed information on why the Gryphon 120 is not comparable to the performance level of the 300, other than the power differential? Assuming appropriate speaker pairing, for each. Thanks. 

There's nothing "modern" about vacuum tubes! Indeed, vacuum tube commerce has collapsed in the 40+ year lapse since I last used a tube-type audio amplifier. All of the principal domestic, British, Dutch, and German producers are now either defunct (like Tung-Sol Electric, my employer from ’57 - ’60), or they’ve long since ceased making tubes. The entire world market for (receiving-type) tubes is now confined to a small coterie of audio and guitar buffs, and served only by obscure Russian and Chinese suppliers with no previous market recognition. (There are other minor sources in former Soviet bloc countries.) The quality and reliability of the tubes made by those arcane foreign suppliers is a subject worthy of concern. And those sources will persist only as long as there’s viable demand, so the outlook for assured access to replacement stock seems dicey. Further, this situation prevails at a time when every instrumented means of evaluating audio quality validates the measurable superiority of modern solid state design, so it's hard to envision an audio future that will extend vacuum tube usage.

just made the switch back to SS myself. Went from Rogue M-180's (loved 'em) to Pass X260.8's

Octave has an excellent reputation, including their integrateds.
As I understand it, and I might be wrong, Gryphon Diablo 120 is not quite Diablo 300 only less powerful. The latter is a reference level integrated. You would want to listen to them both if you considered Gryphon. The phono stage, $2200 option in either, should be excellent. Diablo 120 is $11k and Diablo 300 is $16k, without phono or dac. This would no doubt be different sound - Octave and Gryphon top integrateds.

Pass/First Watt are a good place to start and Gryphon would be another option.  D'Agostino even better....does everything right.  A used S200 might be a little over your budget but worth stretching for.  I'm surprised Ayre has been mentioned as close to tubes....excellent solid state but it is said to be a bit dry.  Another suggestion would be to look at a Jeff Rowland amp.  Truly among the best of solid state.

Hi.  I switched to SS: Ayre MXR's, but after a couple of years was not satisfied with the outcome.  I went back to tubes: Octave MRE 220 with Super Black Boxes.  They are simply superb and have provided the absolute best of a tube and SS amp: fast, articulate transients and deep inner detail of the former and the true flesh and fulness that only tubes can properly deliver.  Don't know how the age of your current tube amp is but if its more than 10 years old then you should know that some modern tube amps like Octave have closed the gap (shut!) between the worlds of glass and transistors.

I ran an Ayre AX-7 for a while.  When I inserted a Rogue CMII into the system, the Ayre got relegated to the secondary system.

A sonically excellent power amplifier should exhibit high input impedance, very low output impedance, flat frequency response, and ultra low distortion. And it should do all of this without contributing any extraneous hum or noise. In addition, it should also be capable of producing unclipped power output that's some 2 or 3 dB more than your loudspeakers can tolerate.

It first became practical to build a power amplifier that meets all of these requirements back in 1976, when PNP silicon power transistors finally became affordable, thereby permitting fully complementary differential solid state circuit design at reasonable cost. And that's when I personally left vacuum tubes behind, in the past, where they belong.

While it's theoretically possible to construct a tube-type power amplifier that will approach the described design criteria, that product will exhibit persistent vacuum tube degradation that begins at initial turn-on and ultimately ends in cathode depletion failure—barring other modes of premature demise (e.g. open filament, vacuum leaks, gassing, microphonics, atypical distortion, hum/noise). So vacuum tubes are not a wise choice when stable, long term circuit performance is a serious design goal.

Thanks for all the recommendations.  If I do make the switch to SS Pass, Ayre, Wells Audio  are all being looked at.  Btw anyone hear Wells Audio amps.  If I stay with tubes Conrad Johnson, Atma-sphere, Quicksilver are currently on the top of my list.  A third option would be a nice integrated amp.  Pass int60 or Gryphon Diablo 120.

Although im not in your price range, i am really enjoying my Rogue RP-5 preamp, Nuforce sta200 amp and Zu speakers. My ss amp has higher than normal gain (speakers 101db) , however, the hiss is hardly noticable at listening position. 

Great bass with the smooth mids and highs. I m still thinking about tube amps, however, i do not want to give up that bass.  Im thinking of a Firstwatt myself. 

I was going toward a similar path as you, although a bit in the opposite direction. I've always had brystons and spectrons but was wanting a little more musiciality so after a ton of listening I ended up mating with a hybrid tube pre (AR LS-17se) and loved what it did for the sound. It opened things up so much but after a while of listening something was missing, although I couldn't put my finger on what. I ended up trailing a few tube amps (quickie v4's (with both kt88 and 120), AR 100.2, and rogue. After those sessions I realized I could deal with the lack of the Brystons muscle in return of the holographic sound of the tubes. I was all set on getting a set of the V4's and was sold on tubes when John from Audio Connection (Verona NJ) had me listen to some of his Belles amps. First the Aria integrated, then the aria monos....literally had one of the best sounds (to my ears) to the point I stopped wanting solid state or tubes , it didn't matter as the amor just sounded good. Usually when I demo something I make mental notes on what stands out, maybe what's missing but with the Belles I just listened....for hours. 
John ended up letting me demo the sa-100 and it was game over. 
In the end everything is system dependant and everyone's ears are different but with the Sa-100 I feel I got the listening experience I wanted with tubes and the reliability of solid state. I can't say enough about Daves products or Johns expertise. 
Give Belles a listen if you have the opportunity 

I used a tube amp (845). Due to high tube mortality I decided to move back to solid state camp. It took me a while to find a replacement, an amp that sounds close to what the tube amp had given me. I settled down on Karan amp. I think this the closest.

You should listen to Ayre offereings

My use of tubes are seasonal.  I use an Audio Research VT100 (tubed) in the winter when I'm paying for heat in the room anyways.  In the summer I switch to an Audio Research D400 SS amp.  I much prefer the tubes, AR does have a sort of "house Sound" that makes them similar,  on the upper panels of my Infinity IRS Gamma's, but my environmental self doesn't let me heat a room with 500 watts of electricity from the amp and then remove the heat from the room with 1000 watts of A/C.  It makes a good reason to looking forward to the cool weather and shorter days!

I moved away from tubes after about 15yrs. I was looking for an amp that would keep that midrange magic but have more grip, speed and headroom. I took a chance on an Italian brand called Audiozen that is brand new to the US through Mark Sossa at Well Pleased Audio Vida. I went from tube integrated to hybrid integrated and couldn't be happier. Audiozen also makes the Lysios dual monaural power amp which is currently being reviewed by Srajan of 6moons. Keep an eye out for Audiozen. Amazing stuff and great value.

Bob, if you're a real tube guy (sounds like it): Class 'A' (lots of heat also) or Hypex nCORE-loaded Class D (Bel Canto, etc) for next to zero heat.

Else, well you'll be missing that 'something'... 

BUT conventional A-B SS like Constellation is getting pretty dang good nowadays!

SS will give the dynamics and grip unavailable to bottles.

All depends what you're aching for to make the change...  ELSE DON'T!

"Literally blown away" seems dangerous…one can only hope for a soft landing.

Ralph the amps are about 15 years old. These are George Wright Sugnature amps. Very nice when they work.

George (may he rest in peace) was pretty competent and there should be no reason to think that the amps can't be refurbished properly. If you really want them to work right over time, I would consider having the filter capacitors in the power supplies replaced. While they are not really so old now to be a problem, in five years they will be.

If these amps have made it 15 years already they really should be able to do that again if properly maintained, which really should only be about the tubes once the power supplies are sorted.

I lived with Krell for years before switching to Classe Delta series amps. While Classe had the mid bass and high frequencies right, they lacked the low base punch of Krell’s. 

I then switched to Modwright KWA150SE for couple of years. To my ears, they had the best balance between SS and Tube amps. While attending RMAF couple of years ago, I heard one of the rooms with bi-amping setup of Tube and Class D amplification. I was literally blown away by the soundstage.  

Had to replicate that setup at home, right! So now I am running a ARC VT-80 with THOR mono’s powering up my 800D2’s. This is by far the best setup and sound I have had going back 15 plus years. 

I tried to switch back to SS amps for a while, didn't work.  I got tired to the heat and maintenance issues.  At the time, I was using VTL 300 Deluxe MB's. I tried 3 or 4 brands of amps  Bryston and Classe and a few others.  This search went on for a years.  In the end, I purchased another VTL but this one needs very little maintenance. It Fault Protection and Auto Biasing features but it still gets hot.  Then again before the I went with tube amps, I had Krell and they were just as hot.  Years ago there was a thread here titled "Cooking With Krell"  pretty funny posts,

Ralph the amps are about 15 years old.  These are George Wright Sugnature amps.  Very nice when they work. QS 135 thanks for you info.  QS are quite nice.

I had a pair of QuickSilver M135 monoblock tube amps for 24 years.  No repairs other than 4 full sets of tubes (& a few fuses blown by over exuberance or an EL34 tube failure).  
I bought a pair of McIntosh MC501 monoblocks, and on the same speakers side by side it was VERY hard to tell the MC501's (SS) from the M135's (tube).  I really think its those crazy output transformers in the McIntosh.  Only other SS amps I've liked Bryston 28B monoblocks. (I've heard several other Bryston amps, but they sounded terrible!)
Now, the MC501's were bought used from a dealer who bought them back from his customer who bought them to replace his VTL tube mono's.  After 6 months he wanted his tubes back.

Wooolfie - You one hard man ta troll.

Ralph I had my current amps worked on recently and one of them came back dead. So not reliable. I will need to replace.

'Dead' is usually something simple! If the amp was just serviced and was dead upon arrival, it could also be something simple from shipping. If I were you, if these amps have given you reliable service in the past, I would simply get the amp fixed. If you sell them and one isn't running, you're going to take a beating on it anyway.

How old are the amps?

@bobheinatz 
I'm running a muscled up First Watt F5 clone I built. It's a very nice amp but it's brutally honest. The F7 is supposed to be a kinder interpretation of the F5 topology. The First Watt amps are unique amps and aren't well suited for every speaker. If you've got $10,000 to burn and you like the simple, lower power designs of First Watt, I'd strongly suggest looking at the Pass XA25. 

uhm.. ss did not exist in the 30's....(well they did... but not specifically an audio thing)

(I know, it was a finger slip, but I could not resist)

Wolf thanks for sharing.

@wolf_garcia 

That Harvard study has been questioned, and anyway, it's out of date.

There was an unresolved confounding factor in that study, and that was the inherent harshness of SS based systems. The alternate explanation is that SS audiophiles did not have too much free time, they were in fact escaping from their systems.

Also the study was done in the 1930's, when SS was very much harsher than it is today. I wouldn't rely on that study, if I were you.

What Wolf said, it really is true, take my word. The truth will set us free!

Tube amps are more fun. Other than the fact that tubes wear out eventually, and people who listen to systems in airless closets may have heat issues, tube amps allow you to mess around with tubes which keeps many unstable audio geeks from causing more trouble in the outside world. This information is based on a comprehensive study from Harvard, where it was found that audiophiles using SS amps had too much free time and could be found wandering the streets in most communities, seemingly looking for random people to harass in attempts to convince them to buy expensive fuses or cable lifters. Sad.

Ralph I had my current amps worked on recently and one of them came back dead.  So not reliable. I will need to replace.

There's a pair of Clayton M300s for sale here now that would be worth a look.  Thinking Class A amps might be your smoothest transition to SS.  Best of luck. 

@bobheinatz , what sort of problems are you having with your current amps? Do you think they can't be fixed so they'll hold up?

+1 joey54I also owned Quicksilver V-4 mono blocks for many years in my system which usually had ProAc speakers. Although I had Harbeth and a few others at times. I also switched to the Aesthetix Atlas from the V-4's. I also have an Aesthetix Calypso preamp which is a great match.

My Quicksilver amps were reliable and sounded great, but did not have the level of grip the Atlas has on the bass. The change in the bass really made the sound lock in for me.

Good luck with your search and have a listen to the Aesthetix Atlas.

As another poster suggested, Nagra is also an option but the price is quite a bit higher. 

I would also recommend you take a look at Plinius amps and/or Integrated. This caught my eye today: 
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/solid-state-silver-mint-condition-2017-10-15-amplifiers

If one wanted an Integrated that sounds some what tube like.