Phono/preamp/amp chain. One of them tube the others SS. Which one?

IMO,The tube phono is the most important in the chain whether using mc or mm cartridge. BTW, I use all tube gear !

Personally, I wouldn’t do that.....as a matter of fact, if all your components are from the same manufacturer, you would have an even better chance of success. I don’t mix anything...cables, etc. Any benefit from trying to deal with problems by gettling something with an opposite defiency means you don’t have the benefits of either. Modern components can be found with excellences if they use s/s or tubes.

Stingreen, we are not talking about simplicity or orthodox purist approach where it is either all tube with possible hybrid amp or all solid state preferably from the same manufacturer. With cables, at the high level and above, I would agree, unless someone wants to experiment with thousands of combinations. Not me.

If you like music you need tubes, but if you need to run Windows you need ss.  A good friend of mine once said, "the only place for ss in a stereo is in the power supply"

Just trying to understand how low level detail on tube better vs. transistor. I haven't heard 70+db gain for LOMC all tube phonostages that don't have typical hissing noise not substantial via speakers, but quite audible via headphones.

The noise floor does not describe the amount of low level detail.  It turns out that the human ear has an exception to the masking rule in that it can hear into a noise floor of hiss. The jury is out on about how much- some say 20db but 10db seems no argument. If you listen to a tube phono section as opposed to a solid state unit of similar gain this difference in low level detail will be audible.

If you use an SUT then getting another 10-12db on the noise floor is easy.