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RE: Do they?

I will cut to the chase with you, shall I? I have done extensive comparisons with what are considered to be the best SS amps on the market as well as with multiple Class D, tube, hybrids etc. SS is smoother and less grainy than from the past...but arguably even less interesting to listen to because the life, which was there occasionally in the older SS designs, is gone gone gone in most of the newest ones.

Which kinds of SS amps? McInstosh (newer ones not old ones), Musical Fidelity KW series, Krell (various models from old to newish), darTZeel, Soulution, Spectral, Moon, Halcro etc. Most sound pretty smooth, even a bit warm at times but none has the life I hear from the best tube amps. Ever heard a Halcro that was all the rage about 10 years ago?? Dreadful stuff but measured better than anything else on the planet...literally.

I currently have two amps: one is pure SET the other is a single ended hybrid with that uses a single big MOSFET on the output in Class A. They sound fairly different from each other but both have high resolution and great tonality. Where they differ is in the presentation of the stereo soundstage and image field and in bass quality. The hybrid has a distinct SS tight dry bass whereas the bass on the SET is actually tight but not as dry...it has very good output iron. It also has a bit more of that inner "life" maybe its just how the darn transistors deliver the signal...not sure but you can hear it...maybe it is the lack of output iron...but it doesn't sound like an OTL either (had two different models of those as well).

I suggest you do some reading about the effect design has on perception of sound rather than raw numbers, which only tell what something is but not the impact of what it does. I would argue that feedback doesn't so much suppress or eliminate distortion as it simply shifts it around (read the white paper from Nelson Pass and some of Norman Crowhurst's writings about signal modulated noise floors created by feedback).

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