There's actually a technical difference between tube and transistor amplifiers in the way they overload, which is probably the primary reason why musicians migh

There's actually a technical difference between tube and transistor amplifiers in the way they overload, which is probably the primary reason why musicians might "prefer" tubes, actually. (I wouldn't call it necessarily "better" all the time, every musician is different, but the tube distortion is often seen as "more musical" to many musicians.) This site (http://www.theaudioarchive.com/TAA_Resources_Tubes_versus_Solid_State.htm http://www.theaudioarchive.com/TAA_Resources_Tubes_versus_So...) summarizes some of the technical differences as seen by IEEE and AES (the AES link is dead on that site, but you can find the article here -- http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=1980 http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=1980)