Guys, I realize that I'm kicking the hornet's nest here. No offense meant . . . 1. I don't believe that "tube warmth" is any good at amplifying anything but an electric guitar. Those amps are deliberately designed to sound colored, not accurate. Tubes used anywhere else in the signal chain are wasted opportunities for clean fidelity & better sounding instruments 2. While older 16bit recordings sounded less than perfect, the latest versions of digital recording will always sound cleaner and more accurate than tape. Even at wide dynamic range. 3. The ear has real difficulty discerning differences less than 2db between sources. The statistics get REAL fuzzy, real fast for MOST listeners. My conceit wants me to believe that, as a trained musician, I can hear differences less than that but I wouldn't want to test for meaningful statistical numbers on it . . . The thread linking the senses (all of them) to the monkey brain are VERY thin. Very open to suggestion and interpretation. If we are in a museum and I say to you, "look at how Picasso uses blue in this painting", what color do you see ? "Tubes sound more musical than SS" is the same sort of prejudicial suggestion. Thaass all I'm sayin' . . .