Quote Originally Posted by musicoverall
Well, if the horse drawn buggies were faster and a more comfortable ride than cars, if iceboxes kept food fresher than fridges and if tin cans sounded clearer than telephones and were as easy to use, I'd certainly prefer them! Unfortunately, of all the comparisons in your analogy, only tube amps outperform their counterpart. But I also prefer vinyl over CD, manual car windows to power ones (well, since my power window got stuck open after a visit to the ATM last week!) and the oven to the microwave. So I guess I'm a little old fashioned! And since tubes have been having a resurgence for quite awhile, I guess the newer, better technology was viewed as only newer by many audiophiles and manufacturers. More reliable, though, and I guess that makes it better in one respect.
You have two different POVs here that are in conflict with each other. Namely, you say that you prefer "vinyl over CDs", manual car windows over powered ones, and a conventional oven to a microwave. Fine. Those are indeed preferences, and so long as they are identified as such, I have no quarrel with them (although I disagree with each and every one myself). But then you say that ... "Unfortunately, of all the comparisons in your analogy, only tube amps outperform their counterpart" and you state this as though it were an actual fact (it's not). Outperform? In what way? If we're talking about sonic accuracy, they certainly come up short in that respect. If, as you point out (grudgingly) at the end of your post, we're talking about reliability, then it becomes a genuine "no-brainer" if there ever was one. That was the main reason that working with tubes on a daily basis was such a pain-in-the-ass to me that I was overjoyed when a technology came along to slay that dragon - once and for all! Only, the cussed things didn't have the common decency to stay slain, but instead, rose from the ashes to live another day. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!

Tubes having a "resurgence" have nothing whatsoever to do with facts or truth ... their climb back up out of the grave (where they should've stayed, IMO) into some sort of a cult-like worship status is nothing but misguided respect and adoration, mixed with a cup of nostalgia on the part of some audiophools who really ought to know better, since their professed hobby is predicated upon a passionate interest in the accurate reproduction of sound ... in other words, "high-fidelity".

You need to put your affection for "the tube sound" into the same box as you placed vinyl, manual car windows, and conventional ovens ... a preference. If you had done so, you would've saved me from all of this typing!