Adding tubes to integrated setup

What tubes?

Many sound similar, some sound significantly different. It’s not Pandora’s box, but you do need to be aware, ask questions, do some research, and it is hard to have confidence when you have little experience.

Like cartridges, think ’preferred’, not ’better’.

Buying new, with OEM provided tube(s), or buying used with original or _____? tubes in it?

Try to ascertain seller’s knowledge/experience, ask here about specific equipment and specific tubes in it. Ask maker if they still exist.

Tube life? Tubes tested? Tubes should last MANY years, some 10,000 hours,

Once you enter the tube world, I recommend an inexpensive tube tester as fundamental to continued existence. With no tester, you leave yourself blind when problems occur. Short" Signal Strength? Matched Strength? Test new tubes when you buy them.

It is not just power tubes that sound different, I loved the sound of my new to me used Cayin OEM tubes, blew one of it’s 6sl7’s, tried a different brand, new, tested perfectly, hated it’s sound, happily Brent Jesse let me break them in 60 hours, still disliked them, return them and try a different choice, whoopee, sounds great again, and I since found and bought some Cayin branded spares.

OEM ’branded’ tubes, from which maker, which batch, huh? At least I can count on Cayin having decided this batch of this maker’s tubes sound good in their unit.

There are hybrid integrated options, most using tube preamp designs and solid state amplification. Vincent, Margules and others do this. Other options are separate tube preamps and solid state amps. Still a third are preamps with selectable tube output stages combined with a solid state amp. I have been using ProJect's PreBox RS2 Digital preamp which is balanced, has a dual DAC, solid state headphone amp and selectable tube and solid state output sections. I am combining one with a Class-D amp with excellent effect.

Good question. Over many years I've found that I need tubes at least somewhere in my system. The Schitt Freya+ preamp makes solid state amps better, at least for the few I've tried--Pass XA-25, Sony FET, Akitika  (and especially with Tung-Sol 6SN7 tubes). Your ears may vary.

Analog Bridge - ModWright Instruments

I have considered the Schitt Freya+ but then i need a power amp as the Yamaha can't function as power amp alone

That ModWright looks about  like what I'm after.  

I could just start over and buy separates.  When I started this I thought I wanted an integrated b/c i didn't think I'd want to have separates and swap stuff out and tinker.  But now that I'm in, I do want to tinker and have become a little obsessed with wanting to try new things. . So here i am...