AUDIOPHILES DON'T SWEAT THE AESTHETICS. Years ago, I gave my dad grief for having a home-built stereo with vacuum tubes in the amplifier. (The treatment of the noun as a term not to be used in polite company was a bit of teasing, after all, he was an engineering manager in a company that sold millions of dollars of solid-state industrial control.) In those days, the vacuum tubes were reliable enough (anybody else remember the drug-store display case where you could compare the bases on replacements?) and their capability of producing higher fidelity exceeded that of solid-state, something which appears to be true well into the digital age.