Ahh, but 2x6spds - no one's knocking the tube sound, just how it's used. I, for one, having played both guitar and bass through tube and S/S amps - I still own a Johnson tube PA built in Brandon, MB circa 1954... will admit they sound different - whether it's characterized as even-order distortion (by engineers) or warmth (by musicians).
As far as the production of sound is concerned, tube amps for musicians are a great idea, they add timbre (or character) to a pretty dead sounding instrument - after all, the best instruments in the world all create distortion to colour their sound - the vibrations set up inside the f-holes in a violin, for instance. Without adding something to an electric guitar or bass - it would sound a whole lot like a synthesizer.
But once you've captured that sound and you want to reproduce it, S/S electronics do it a lot cleaner - you're trying not to recolour the sound but to play it back as faithfully as possible (which is why most of us prefer flat-response loudspeaker designs).
And if you really enjoy the tube sound and want to avoid the pitfalls of tubes, they're doing incredible things with MOSFETs these days - Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (whew!), they sound like tubes - but baby, they ain't tubes!
Bren R.
