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

Ralph - really good points and the human hearing system is also hyper sensitive to time and phase...so getting part right only gets you so far IMO
tube dac, tube preamp, hybrid high pass amp with just 5 parts in the signal path, time and phase accurate speakers ...ah...

but your preamp is on my list to listen to

xrayz
sometimes..the FET front end tube buffer out SP-17 is I believe a good example of the sum being better than the bits ..... i own one so count me as biased tho..
a REF 5se it is not, but for the $$$ quite competent...

btw this has been a very civil thread with a lot of hard won knowlege being shared - I for one see this as the best Audigon offers
thank you all !

I was wondering about a tubed buffer stage between source and amp?
If one was to go with either SS, or tubes, will it make a huge difference? Or, is it just a waste of money?

If you don't need the gain a tube buffer is a good idea. You will loose some voltage with a tube buffer (as it will be a cathode follower); to minimize that and to decrease distortion a mu follower is not a bad idea. The reduced output impedance will allow you to run longer cables and will reduce the sonic qualities of the cable.

We've optionally built buffer circuits in our preamps that have direct-coupled balanced outputs.