Benefit, of course!! Solid states are very good ones as well, but with tubes comes Tube rolling and finding what flavor you like, yeah it costs, and yeah it could take some time and knowledge to find the right tubes, but bottom line just like any preamp you can customize the sound.. Solid state is good but will always sound the same or generally anyway, if its too hard sounding or to soft sounding with your cartridge combo you got no choice but to keep messing with cartridge settings or changing it all together, the tube changing should be cheaper and can be more effective. But I would find one with not too many tubes and this will reduce the issue over going crazy with some 8 tube phono pre or something. Just my opinion, but I have had a few hi regard stand alone Solid states, and Built in pre's in solid state preamps, I listen to mostly hard rock, classic rock, and stuff from the beatles on and just found tubes to be much nicer to balance things out, plus I have capabilities to change the input impeadance for MC which really helps match up the cartridge.
