It might be as well to segment valves into PP, SE and OTL. TX amps (PP and SE) ultimately are unlikely to resolve the last ounce of detail, maybe some really mega TXs can but mostly not. SE is going to be coloured in some way but in a way that makes certain music more magical. PP will have more grunt and cope with complexity better than SE. OTL is capable of running with SS in terms of resolution. I regularly swap between SE (300B and EL84 amps), Quad 306 and a couple of Class D. They all give their own perspectives - generalising hugely I'd say my SS amps are very resolving but lacking some emotion - great for what I'd call "active" or "cerebral" listening; my SE amps are great for a more flowing portrayal of music, eg 50s/60s Jazz (Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Dave Brubeck). I've heard but not owned an OTL, I plan to build one in the next year or so.

Of course much depends on the speakers and how well they match the amps in use, especially the valve amps.

Oh yes...if I were majorly listening to Prog I'd probably not choose a valve amp.

Free speech & Views is important to a forum. I personally love that clearish but creamy mid range. Funny enought Martin i have what you had a Rebuilt Leak '20' i did via Russ Andrews

I'm conflicted here as I have had great times with valve amps but then I have grown tired of their lack of grunt and slam. With the right speakers they can be lovely but if I had to commit now to having only valve or SS for the rest of my life it would be SS. Thankfully I don't and I know I will dabble again.

Interesting thread.
I use a pure Class A amp in my system and I am wholely satisfied with it. Big wide and deep sound with plenty of detail. I would love to hear a great valve amp in my system. I have haerd a pretty good modded one by Tube distinctions which was great but nothing special
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I did borrow some really expensive and bloody huge monoblocks , sorry I forget the valve type. I played Adele and I was amazed at the lack of bass, and what was there was really sloppy. But the mid range I fell in love with, just couldn't believe my ears, I felt like I was having an affair with Adele.

I haven't heard enough valve amps, and valve amps across the different types listed to make a firm conclusion but I'm staying with big Class A amps for now, but I would love to hear a proper valve amp in my system.

In my experience you can get as wide a range of sonic presentations from valves as you can from solid state - i.e. very wide indeed and going to all extremes.

Yes, you can get soft and creamy valve amps with fluid mids etc etc - you can also get solidity and slam that will pin you against the rear wall, MartinT style. My friend Justin has such amps driving full range ribbon Apogee Duettas (a bastard of a load)- way more than enough pinpoint detail and bass slam for those that want that sort of sound. Way too much for many people, actually! He's got a pair of German 211 valve monoblocks that will re-arrange your sensibilities about valve amps for sure.

Me? I don't go to extremes in that way, preferring a middle course that is a rather easier listen.
I tend to alternate between valves and solid state. In fact, my recent solid state-only phase came to a stop yesterday with the arrival of a valve preamp. Yum.

My mate Justin would probably call that lot 'wimpy shite'

His 211 monos would bring a big grin to even MartinT's face in terms of slam.

With the possible exception of the baby Audion, I think that's probably fair comment

My limited experience has certainly indicated that certain valves have a particular sound. All the EL34 amps were similar, for instance. If only 211s were a tenner each, eh?

I didn't even find the mids the best of the bunch but certainly better than bass or treble, The KT90 seemed to be the best valve I used but they were apparently one of the best KT90 incarnations available, One day I will try bigger valve amps. Is th 211 where it's at or are there more powerful sounding valves?

My findings are that valve amps are a strange beast. The best are sublime, the worst are bloody awful. The problem with most valve amps is that they lack power supply.
By this I mean that the psu is usually designed to give the basic voltage and current capacity that the circuit is designed for. The rule of thumb when speccing a mains tx is take the quiescent current and add abit to give your current capacity. The psu basically lacks headroom. treble doesn't require alot of current, bass does. Someone boots a kickdrum, there needs to be an instant spike of current drawn from the psu to produce this.
A circuit will have a basic quiescent current requirement, this is the current it requires to sit there idling but not playing music. This may be something like 300ma for a push pull el34 that makes say 40wpc. The psu is usually specced around this figure plus abit in reserve.
Problem is, that when music is playing, the psu needs to be able to produce spikes of current all over the place that are much more than the quiescent figure. It needs to be able for produce these spikes, and not bottom out because the capacitors in the psu have discharged, or haven't recharged sufficiently.
There are 2 schools of thought on this.
Firstly a psu that has sod all capacitance in it that can charge in a very fast time frame to generate the spike for the next bit of music,
Or my preferred way, a brute force psu that has a hugely over specced mains tx capable of delivering 3 or 4 times the quiescent current, and huge capacitance ( within reason) that means the amp always has the current capacity on hand. In my opinion, Crap bass from a valve amp is down to the psu not being man enough. Hazy imaging and detail the same. While a limp psu is trying to deliver all its power into a kickdrum, there ain't enough left to deliver that cymbal crash properly.
Its all in the power supply. You can throw as many bijou components at it as you like, but if the psu is lacking it won't solve the problem. But mains transformers and caps on the scale needed are expensive, hence why the really good commercial valve amps are so expensive. I have heard a diy pp el84 amp with a rediculous psu that could out slam many ss amps.
Naim got it very right with the hi cap, super cap et al, they recognised that the psu is perhaps the most important thing.
Its even more important with a valve amp, and unfortunately it can be the most expensive part of the design which is why it is skimped on.
Look inside a big ss amp and there is usually a massive toroid and a great big bank of caps. The psu in good ones are designed not to bottom out as Ss devices are low voltage high current devices, whereas valves are high voltage low current devices. But just because they need relatively low current to operate, it doesn't mean they need low current capacity to play music. It really doesn't matter how big an output transformer is as long as it doesn't saturate, the output transformer needs to be precisely wound and specced to give the least distortion possible, and precision is expensive. but again, if the psu can't deliver, the output transformer can only work with what it's given.
Cheers ant