I'm a SS guy. I've had SS equipment for over 25 years, From my days of the "big" Pioneer SX-1280 and EPI speakers (which I still have) to my current "big" PS Audio amp driving my 3.6 maggies, I've been happy with mostly all of it. I never really had a chance to play with tubes, or even much cared too. However, I just got back from a visit to the "in-laws" for Thanksgiving, and got a chance to use a very interesting piece of equipment. A 1964 vintage Top-of-the-line Sears console! Before you guys start laughing, Sears was just about the ONLY way you could buy Hi-fi stuff if you weren't in the major cities like NY or LA back then. @ $469 in 1964 money, this was one expensive item too. Sears gave you three years to pay it off! This puppy was in MINT condition, the wood lovingly oiled over the years, but unfortunately it had seen little service since 1979, the year of the loss of the owner. A quick check of everything showed it all works. I didn't have a tube tester (or even know where to find one) but I changed out the tubes to a set of new-in-box Sylvania tubes that were there. OK, put on some FM, and guess what..SOUND!
Sweet, euphonic, rolled off, easy to listen to all day, music! Got out the old Christmas records, changed out the "electro-voice" stylus (with diamond tip)! and we had sweet, euphonic, rolled off, easy to listen to all day, Christmas music! Anything below 100 or above ~5000 or so was out of it's range, but what it did, it did sweetly, and was very pleasant to listen too for many hrs. (the eggnog was flowing pretty freely too)! Now I'm sure that the THD was much higher than any SS gear that I've ever owned, but it sure didn't stop us from enjoying it. I've got a soft spot now in my heart for old equipment. I'm not going to toss my gear out and go get a vintage console, but I did have some fun with the old gear, and was not unimpressed with it's sound. Actually, it was quite good reproducing the female & male voice. One of the FM stations had a Beatles marathon going on, and it was good fun to imagine that we were back in 1965, transported back in sound by this vintage console. (did I say the eggnog was flowing pretty good)?

Cheers all!