tubes and soundstage

[robert]

i'd been annoyed/concerned because, no matter whether i connected to the Headroom Home or the cd player (full or portable), the soundstage was a bit tilted, with full left being just above and full right just below, level.

well, i just noticed that with the MAD Ear+, that effect is gone. straight and level mr. sulu.

what i wonder is why? the only thing which springs to mind is that the Ear+ is SE class A, while the others aren't. could it be that some kind of phase-y voodoo happens with lesser circuits? so, it's not tubes per se, but the class of the circuit?

[kuma]

Robert,

Tube amps generally do staging thing better than solid state.

I still haven't heard any solid state fone amp that matches the stage of even the humblest tube amps bring.

For 'speaker' amplifiers, those that can do layering,stage depth and reach-out-and-touch-someone imaging quality are limited to silly expensive solid state amplifiers and this is the main reason, I put up with tube amps.