The speakers and amp together have a great deal to do with all the above comments. They should be considered one circuit. Most of today's speakers have two way designs or three way with a cone that is too slow for the midrange it's producing. Get a dome or a ribbon midrange and get a really good SS amp so that your bottom end is not corrupted by the lack of definition and control of the low end speakers. By all means don't let anything above 100-125 HZ go through a slow 10 or 12 in cone especially driven by a tube amp. If all you want is a sweet midrange get a full tube system and a single voice coil speaker as today's speaker designers have lost the ability to truly get two/three way speakers mixing the frequencies correctly. Otherwise just go get a standard surround system from Marantz or something like that where the bus crash sound is all you are looking for. Most people can't distinguish between an mp3,mp4 and lossless PCM anyway. When people talk about most stereo changes they are talking about the distortion they like. If you hear the stereo and are not hearing only the music then you are in that crowd IMNSHO. I used to build $4000.00 amps and custom Speakers in the 70's. The Cary SLP-98p&l are both outstanding tube units. Especially if you change out the 6SN7 tubes used for the line stage with american or german new old stock (NOS) tubes as recommended above. You might even need the tube dampeners as they are sometimes sensitive to the feedback produced. For a tube unit I only have one better and that is a VAC. I still think a really simple SS circuit with minimum extra circuits like protection et. al. is the finest sound. You can't get that stuff because manufacturers don't want the risk of a blown bank of transistors. Tubes are replaced regularly by stereo nuts who want to play so the problem is solved. VAC at least sealed some units. There was nothing like my Bedini / Strelioff (actually in the end Strelioff) SS preamp and amp for sound. Just have to turn them on yourself and let nobody touch any on/off switch. Bob Carver gets bashed for no good reason. He built equipment a mere mortal could/can have and stereofile and all their "expert listeners" couldn't tell the difference between a $700 and a $5000 unit back in the early 80's. Including a Fine tube amp. His C-19 partial tube preamp was pretty special with a good set of replacement NOS tubes from the past.
Listen to the music not the stereo. I repeat, If you are hearing your stereo that's bad. I'd rather listen to Rickie Lee Jones than my stereo. Now I'll go put on my flack jacket for the folks who bought CD demagnetizers from Bedini and for the tube zelots. Bedini was always the consummate salesman. As for the tube zelots I have a bunch of tube amps and preamps some of which (mostly amps) are for sale (like a pair of McIntosh MC30's in primo shape - the holy grail of tube amps). Opinions in here are likely discarded - I don't mind as opinions are like elbows and ... (well you know the rest).
Listen to the music not the stereo. I repeat, If you are hearing your stereo that's bad. I'd rather listen to Rickie Lee Jones than my stereo. Now I'll go put on my flack jacket for the folks who bought CD demagnetizers from Bedini and for the tube zelots. Bedini was always the consummate salesman. As for the tube zelots I have a bunch of tube amps and preamps some of which (mostly amps) are for sale (like a pair of McIntosh MC30's in primo shape - the holy grail of tube amps). Opinions in here are likely discarded - I don't mind as opinions are like elbows and ... (well you know the rest).