There should be bullets flying around by now, or maybe everybody is in a relaxed vacation mood....
One of these days, I am going to dust off the phono and connect it to my kit valve amp and see what gives.... To really do some serious listening, I would have to send the wife away on holiday or on a refresher course or something... then feed the cats and open a bottle of wine and eat something while the system is warming up and only then kill the lights and sit down in the sweetspot!!!!
From past experiences, I seem to get carried away till the early morning hours, so its best done over the weekends, otherwise a rather sleepy head syndrome will be experienced at work.
My 25W per channel valve amp sounded different from the 100W per channel Solid State amp, but this was to be expected. I am not in a position to do quick tests with one amp then connect up another, all because the moment the cats see the cables moving, its playtime for them...many is a time when I have put on a cd ( oh dear, digital again) after a long day at work only to be rewarded with music from a 1.1 system, as these 4 pawed fiends ( I mean friends ) have been trying to dewire the system in my absence!! Anyway, to cut a long story short, In my humble opinion, the valve amp seemed fuller in sound ( someone will soon say its because of the distortion, etc... ) than its SS counterpart and one can easily grow partial to that. Others may claim that the beefy SS are quietly in control, not contributing significantly with even harmonic distortions while odd harmonic distortions in little doses can enhance the music, as is the case with the tubes....
Whatever the case, has anybody tried connecting an ESL to such a low powered tube amp? My design allows no switching from 8 to 4 Ohms and the ESLs are rated 4Ohms and current hungry....