The ups and downs of tube vs. SS...

@wspohn
I'm kinda the same way. I've got s/s in the man-cave and toobs in the big room. There is a huge variation in the sound of, say, a Bedini s/s amp or an s/s Mac. Ditto with tube amps. My speaks (Tylers) are 90 dB and I listen to damn near anything.

jtweet, I did not mention that I am pairing my Parks Audio Budgie Tube Phono preamplifier with my solid state Panasonic SA-HE200 receiver or any other receiver for that matter downstream works well too.

koss_amojan, whatever the magic is with tubes, my Parks Audio Budgie Tube Phono preamplifier at $399 with the pair of NOS Telefunken E88CC/6922’s at $454 beats the heck out of spending a couple of thousand dollars on interconnects and another couple of thousand dollars on a turntable for better quality sound. Not to mention the  $1748 Pro-Ject Phono Box RS MM/MC and the companion Pro-Ject battery powered Power Box RS power supply that I fortunately sold for cost. 

I took a $200 Pioneer PL-600 direct drive turntable (the silver one) and upgraded the headshell with Ortofon LW-800S headshell wires and the above mentioned Shure V15VxMR cartridge with the JICO (Shure) VN5xMR stylus, rewired the tonearm with KAB SuperFlex Tonearm wire and hardwired the phono interconnects with the very inexpensive but value added Blue Jeans Cable LC-1’s with the preamp output interconnects being Blue Jeans Cable LC-1’s also.

I have 2 used Power Sound Audio V1081 subwoofers for left and right bass with again the Blue Jeans Cable LC-1’s subwoofer interconnects.

My front left, right and center speakers are Miller & Kreisel Professional MPS-2510’s with again, Blue Jeans Cable 12 gauge 5000UE speaker wire.

And all these modestly priced components perform flawlessly with each other. And without the Parks Audio Budgie Tube Phono preamplifier with the pair of NOS Telefunken E88CC/6922’s I don’t think my modestly priced system would sound as good.

And the receiver upgrade is the next upgrade for me. It’s just that every time I see an Anthem 1120 receiver on ’Gon I don’t have all the money to pull the trigger, but I’m working on it.

This is the first time I have posted here after years of lurking. Thanks to all you good folks who have posted here to help me make better decisions about that VERY EXPENSIVE hobby of trying to be an audiophile! It is much appreciated!

tyray....there are lots of smart and savvy people here so I find
there's someone for every occasion .....and now you're already
one of them........a phono pre may be in my future(skipping the long
version of this story ) and your mention of Parks Audio Budgie
was news to me so did some googling and gets some great reviews
and added bonus....I have Eastern Electric cdp which uses two
6922s  of which I have a small back stash so ...that works. and I too
like many need to find good "budget " items, so also good. Hope you
continue to post. Most people here are eager to help.

Oh, great! What’s next, transistor rolling? 🤡

@minorl  Not really following this thread...but your post caught my attention. +1  Nice balance! Thanks.