Tube Headphone Amplifiers (similar to tube guitar amplifiers?)

same idea.

 

tubes = warm and smooth presentation

 

solid state = faster and more aggressive

 

 

All true, but add guitar amps are mono, and headphone amps are stereo...
 

 

I think there is a lot less difference in sound between a HIFI tube amp vs SS and a Tube Guitar amp vs SS.

The biggest reason that tubes work so well in a guitar amp is because you are looking to color the sound and create the crunch and even order harmonics to color and distort the sound (this applies to both clean and dirty channels). The tubes used in guitar amps are also much higher gain tubes and are often cascaded from one to the next to create clipping in the preamp section and sag in the power amp section.

HIFI tube amps are (as far as I know) run with much lower gain tubes and designed without the cascaded gain stages. Their aim is to amplify the signal while staying below the clipping threshold instead of purposely going above it.

That all being said: as a guitar player I am still very much emotionally attached to the "tube" sound. I don't know what percentage of the perceived benefit in SQ I hear from tubes is in my ears vs my emotions though.