I don't put much stake in people who advocate tubes, so I hope this wasn't the same person commenting on the design qualities of the empeg. Which does use better components than the majority of car audio products out there.

If a power amp is designed not to its job, then you should not be able to tell the difference between one and another given the same output volume (and other components being the same). If a tube amp sounds "warmer" then it's tainting the music.

I stopped listening to most so-called "experts" a long time ago. If you read any of the online car audio forums, you'll see people praising the quality of their source components only to use interconnects that are sure to cause problem and headaches (more even than their marketing buzz already does while reading about them).

I'm about to do an install for the first time in my BMW and I'll likely be using all the stock wiring because it's very similar to what I would have installed anyway: UTP. As for a power amp, I'm just putting in something I know was designed as a solid product and has some of the features I want. In my last install I could also not detect it was otherwise altering or coloring the music, which is good enough for me.

Bruno