There's a certain magic that tubes seem to have over solid state. Our local club did a shoot out of some pre's recently and I think most agreed that the winner had a better presentation of inner harmonics. It was still clear, deliniated, extended, with good soundstaging, depth and imaging. But it had something else that made it sound more whole - and that was attributed to those inner harmonics I spoke of earlier.
The others had some variation of those other characteristics - some being too sharp and pristene but lacking the realness and palpability. Others were old world bloomy but lacked extension and detail in the top and bottom end. However, the room seemed to prefer that sound overall to the overly pristene preamps we heard.
It wasn't just old world tube bloom that made the winner stand out. Although that may certainly be part of it when you couple the bloom with the more accurate imaging and such of modern preamps.
Unfortunately the winner of our shootout is no longer manufactured and very hard to find used. It was the Audio Prism Mantissa (or a Red Rose Model3 after Mark Levinson bought their electronic line).
The others we compared were an old AR (forgot model # - rolled off but had that bloom all loved), a new VanAlstine (very pristene but lacking the bloom, almost solid state sounding), an older CAT (also very clinical sounding, surprise), a highly modded Copeland (somewhat of a middle ground but there was distortion I couldn't get past, perhaps bad soldering).
Good luck with your search. Lots to choose from and definitely lots to audition and hear before you decide.
Bob
