okay heres what you say.
Transistor (solid state) poweramps and tube poweramps both have break up levels, otherwise known as the point at which they are driven too hard to sound clear. When a transistor reaches that level, very very high frequencies are amplified alot louder than the mid to lower frequencies giving it a very screechy metallic tone otherwise known as poweramp distortion. When tubes break up, they have a more rounded tone because more mids are emphasized thus giving you that warm awesome tube fuzz like overdrive. If you've ever compared SS and tube poweramp distortion, you'd know how shitety SS sounds. Example: take a marshall mg, plug into the clean channel, and max out the volume. Due the same to a jcm 800, one will sound FAR better than the other. Why? POWERAMP DIFFERENCES
Also, current differences between tubes and transistors. Due to the size of transistors, current travels much faster through them, thus amps with solid state poweramps have much faster attack, and tighter bass. Tube poweramps as we know are far more spongy on the attack.
Also compare rectifier tubes. Tube rectifiers have way more sag than transistor rec's.
Then ask him. "if all the tone comes from the preamp, then why when i swich el34's to 6l6's, do i lose a lot of mids and gain alot of bass?"
Also, ask him why 6550's are so crunchy.
And why kt77's have more bass than el34's
and how the $% we know all this if poweramps have no effect on tone. What a dumbass hahahahah.