Actually, I was thinking about that. I have never heard a tube power amp in an audio sound system, only in my recording studio and my guitar amps. I notice that if I applied too much voltage or "tube sound" on my microphone preamp tubes, it was distorted and the solid state stuff sounded just the same and could be run at much higher levels throught the gain spectrum w/o the "tube sound"..ie distortion. And as for the guitar amps I have (my Marshall uses EL34's and my Mesa/Boogie uses 6L6/5881's), those have incredible overdrive characteristics. Ultra clean (more precise, but way less organic), is done with solid state stuff. I just don't know how this all applies to stereo systems or HT... I think we may be on the right track of thinking...? 'Cause wailin' on the guitar = distortion & organic cleans!