The ups and downs of tube vs. SS...

It depends.... And nobody should argue with that. 

Unlike solid state, valve owners obsess over their gain devices. A lot of them can tell you how well the devices are paired, how they're biased, what type of devices they are, who made them, and what mode they're operated in. I think if solid state users took that kind of interest in their gain devices instead of obsessing over passive parts like capacitors the opinions might be a bit more balanced. Beyond that, a strong argument can obviously be made for simple topologies which is the rule for tubes. You just can't throw tubes at problems like you can transistors. Simple solid state topologies can be very competitive with tubes if the same attention to detail are applied. 

I've been eyeballing this thread for a few days now. Naturally, I've got an opinion or two. 

From what I can tell, most of virtues people are crediting to tubes isn't tubes at all, but rather the product of transformers and simple topologies. For instance, the behavior Atmasphere is attributing to tubes driving tough loads a few posts up has nothing to do with tubes, but how they're coupled to the load. McIntosh transformer couples their solid state amps to achieve the exact same goal. 

Another example would be power JFET output stages. Or VFET, or SIT, or whatever you want to call them. They have the classic triode-like transconductance curves, and if implemented in a simple topology like a SET with proper line loading and all that fun jazz, they sound indistinguishable from triodes. 

As far as I can tell, the magic in tubes has little to do with the actual tubes, but rather how they interact with the circuit. Rarely do you see that attention paid in solid state amps, especially those with 4, 5, or 6 gain stages. I think the reason you see solid state amps pop up from time to time that transcend this debate is because somebody has made real effort in pair parts with circuits to take best advantage of the gain devices. 

@geoffkait 
Sure! Why not? 

@geoffkait 

$40 is a great deal for this much!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001AT9GP0/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1520647228&sr=8-8&p...

Jtweed, Techmoan on YouTube looked at some tubes buffers implemented as you describe and found they do inject that tube quality. 

Dear God....  That staid dogma about tubes Geoff just spouted is such obtuse nonsense! All this magical jazz people attribute to tubes has practically nothing to do with the tubes themselves. It's far more a product of the topology. Plenty of solid state amps make that case. 

@geoffkait 

What? You make no sense. How do you see black and white in topology? 

I'm looking at a debate here where folks are going from 4, 5, or 6 gain stages with all kinds of feedback to 2 or 3 with very little and they're giving all the credit to the gain devices. It's really not.