Well, here's the end of this story...
I went to the local music store and plugged into everything that wasn't moving and found that, yeah, tubes do sound much better. The line 6 was pretty nice too and had a great blues/jazzy kinda smooth tone to it. Have to say though that I'm going with the Fender Cyber Deluxe. It's a solid state amp that just does everything you could want and I think the damn thing even makes espresso! You can model about 30-40 different amps with it... lot's to learn on this one.

Check it out and if anyone else has ever played it, please let me know what you think. Pro's / Con's.
http://www.fender.com/cyber/index.php

thanks again for all the replys... really does help to get others opinions.
thanks.