question about ss or tubes

Both tube and solid state take some time to break in; in addition both take time to warm up. Tubes take about two hours to really sound right and solid state takes 24 hours to a week (meaning that if its a solid state preamp it should be left on all the time for best results. Consult your manufacturer about the safety of doing so).

If you feel like you are missing some detail I would consider sticking with tubes. Triode signal tubes arguably have the greatest linearity known to man; If there is any place to put a tube its as close to the front end of your system as you can. Once you loose information no matter how good the amps and speakers are you can't regain it downstream.

Atmasphere, the solid state phono pre never got shut off for the two weeks I had it. I had an ss amp once that took forever to break in, probably in the hundreds of hours. I've often wondered if the same can be expected from ss preamps. Thanks for the suggestion on sticking with triode signal tubes. I don't think throwing out the baby with the proverbial bath water would be right. Not to discount ss but a 180 about face is probably too extreme of an unknown. I see your point about closer to source upstream stuff. But, Isnt it just as likely downstream areas can mask things as well. It's gonna be interesting to hear what changing from the Shuguang's to the EML does. Thanks for your input. 

Hello, I am not an expert, but I can tell you what I have, and how it performs.

i have an audio research amp and preamp, both tube.  For the phono stage, I have a Whest PS .30R, a solid state unit which is priced in the same range as the one you mentioned.

i have to say, my analog front end has amazing qualities compared to my digital, and my digital is no slouch!

the analog is a Lyra Delos cartridge, a JA Michell Tecnodec, and the Whest phono stage; the digital is a PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC mkII.

the result is the analog has more life and presence, better details, and better stage, but not by a huge margin. The PS Audio DAC is pretty darned good.

In my non expert opinion, the analog system I have works wonders. And the phono stage I had before the Whest was an Audio Research tube model!

hope that helps in some way.  Good luck!

Mark, thanks for sharing your experience. ill bet your analog is so very detailed. It's sounds very interesting. I wish I could hear it. The whest combined with the Delos. I had my eye on those whest's awhile back and wondered about them pretty seriously. I can tell your digging on it. Cool table to. I've only read about those pieces. Ive heard some Audio Research gear and I thought it was also pretty detailed. Are you by chance using any warmer tube brands? Again thanks and I'm still open to a ss pre, and I think which direction I end up going will depend on how the system sounds with new eml's and the flavor it gives. Those Tom Evans pre's sound like a possibility for the ss side of the fence. What I'm most worried about ss is it won't sound natural but that may just be a silly cliche. 

I just had an opportunity to demo a (well broken in) Sutherland 20/20 that a friend loaned me while I was waiting for a Manley Chinook to arrive.  The 20/20 was a nice step up from several phono stages around the 1k mark (Heed Quasar, Sutherland Ph3D, Croft RIAA Phono).  It had more detail and better decay and high frequency extension.  However, the Chinook was a gargantuan leap forward (in my system, of course).  Yes, the sound stage was much bigger, the details were more natural, and the bass depth was better, but most importantly I stopped thinking about the sonic characteristics of the phono amp and started thinking about music.  The Chinook was the single biggest improvement I've made to my system.