TUBE or SS?

I am interested in ML, VTL. I've seen them in various show's, however in HT configuration. Anyway they were impressive. What is a Z-System??

sedond!! I wouldnt be so quick to judge or blame your Rogue 99.You have only had it a short time and its too soon to pass blame.I have a 99 and have killer bass!! Could be any number of things thats not giving you the bass you want,but Im sure its not the 99.

Hi Tom; and thanks for your response to my "terse" post. I too shouldn't generalize. Some of the most important aspects of say, R&B music to me are pace, rhythm, and timing, and in my experience (limited w/ tube amps), SS amps are quicker, and have more control of woofers, and thus serve PR&T much better. I auditioned for a week, an SFS-80 (STPH Class B), and while it had a great mid-range and deep powerful bass, the rest of bass characteristics were terrible, ie slow, bloated, boomy, and it totally destroyed PR&T. This was in comparison to my McCormack DNA-1DX which had quick, tight, articulate bass with great PR&T. Other than this, I've only casually heard a few other tube amps at dealers. I agree that mid-range is most important, but to me good bass and PR&T are a close second. I would guess that some of the super tube amps must produce good bass-- I would like to know which and at what price. My long term solution may be to go to Vandersteen 5 speakers, that have built in SS amps for the woofers, and put a good tube amp on the mids + tweeter. Cheers. Craig.

I agree with Tom. I think it is a general misnomer to categorize tube amps as missing in action in the bass department. Agreed that generally solid state has a tendency to have better CONTROL but tube amps DO have a tendency do articulate the timbre more realistically in the lower frequencies as well as the midrange. Craig if you want to hear a tube amp with some bass SLAM listen to an ARC D-250 servo; VT-200 mono's, Jadis 200's, Manley Reference. They may not reach the depths of say a big Krell but I hardly think you could want for too much (excepting maybe a lower electric bill). Personally I have owned and listened to many solid state amps over the years and after owning tube amps for the past 10 years and switching in solid amps on occasion to see if I was missing anything, I have come to the conclusion time and again I am not. Truth of timbre is most important to me and even though the gap may be closing I still don't hear it.

Virtually everyone who has responded is a bit misinformed. Power amps don't have a sound on their own. As such, they can't be dynamic or detailed. It is the speaker/amp combination that provides the sound. Certain combinations can be more dynamic or detailed than other combinations. This ultimately has nothing to do with whether the amp is tubed or solid state. Instead, it has to do with whether the amp/speaker combination is optimal. Case in point, I have a 3 watt Fi 2A3 amplifier that sounds more dynamic than any of my solid state amplifiers (Krell KSA 200S, Pass Model 2s, Sunfire). How can this be? I use the Fi with 103 dB sensitive horns. The solid state amplifiers power speakers with sensitivities ranging from 85 dB to about 90 dB...Don't even think about using solid state on the horns (it sounds terrible). Detail? Both tube and solid state amplifiers can sound very detailed when optimally matched to a speaker. A lot of tube amps get a bad rap because folks use them with speakers that can't be driven well with tubes. A veiled sound is the result. Moreover, solid state amps can have a sound which appears more detailed to many listeners. This, however, is really an illusion caused by higher levels of odd order harmonic distortion (relative to tube amplifiers) which are subjectively perceived as greater detail. Musicality? I've found that an optimally matched tube amp/speaker combination (especially with SETs) more frequently provides a higher degree of musicality than a solid state amp/speaker combination. This is not to say that solid state can't sound musical, but none of my solid state amp/speaker combinations achieve the high level of musicality delivered by my tube amp/speaker combinations. If it were my $10K, I'd buy a used pair of AvantGarde Duos (To my ears, AvantGarde's horns are the best horns I've heard. They're not as good as the new Duo 2.0 series (I own a 2.0 pair), but with proper setup, they're still killer. I've seen them as low as $6K on Audiogon), a used 300B or 2A3 SET amp (it must be very low in noise since the 103 dB sensitivity will magnify and hum and noise), a new Sony SCD777ES SACD player (State of the art on SACD and more than acceptable on CD. Can be had for $1800 or less brand new). For preamplification I'd use EVS passive attenuators (around $225 new). For cables, I'd invest in Goertz copper or silver used. Even used, however, silver is probably out of your price range...but oh, what a sound! The above system will simply smoke anything else I'm aware of at or anywhere near that price point. It will, in fact, smoke most systems regardless of price. And when I say smoke, I'm not talking about a subtle or minor difference. It will obliterate most of them. If for some reason you don't want one of the best systems on the planet, check out Silverline Audio speakers. Although they will fall dynamically and musically short of the best horn systems, they mate better with tubes than most dynamic loudspeakers.