I just went through this myself and went with the Willsenton r8. It’s around $1300 and will 100% give you the full tube experience.
Don’t listen to that crap about needing to spend 2k+ minimum or even that tubes are expensive or difficult to maintain. The Muzishare and Willsenton are excellent amps and easy to live with. I takes about 3-5 minutes to bias my amp and is a complete non-issue unless you tube roll the power tubes. This would be very unusual (tube rolling is predominately for pre-amp tubes which don’t require a bias adjustment). And even if I was to roll power tubes, its kinda fun to bias, makes it seem like more of a hobby.
Power tubes last around 2500 hours or so and there are plenty of new production EL34 and KT88’s that sound excellent for around 25-50 per tube. The new issue stuff is also getting better and better. I listen to music about 10hrs a week at most so even w KT88’s at $50 per that’s $200 every 5 years.
Pre-amp tubes last twice as long and are less expensive unless you want some rare NOS tubes. If you are on a budget though, you can get NOS Russian Federation 6sn7 & 6sl7’s from the 80’s for about $5-10 a tube that actually sound great. That’s also what Willsenton ships with the R8. I have yet to figure out who makes their stock power tubes, mine had no markings.
If you would prefer keeping the Nova 300 in the system, then go with the Schiit Freya+ (without tubes $850, and get those Russian 6sn7’s as a starter set) or a used Freya (about $650). This is what I plan to do. I still have a SimAudio W3 that I own, and I’m going to try a tube pre to see how much of the "tube sound" I can get from the pre-section. I plan on keeping the R8 no matter what. Hopefully I can get some of the lifelike sparkle and 3D holographic thing tubes provide that transistors alone seem to miss.
