Never Owned a Tube Amp and Want Advice

Well, the 1960's Amperex tubes have been installed about ten hours now and I can hear less sibilance and the sound is clearer to me. This is with both the DAC and turntable. 

I feel I should be using the digital front end to evaluate any further amp changes, as my digital is further along the quality curve. 

The analog seems a bit thin and tipped to the treble in comparison to the digital which is fuller with better soundstage.

I have sent the Technics 1200 off to KABUSA for a tonearm rewire and intend to install their fluid damper that had just been sitting in the box. We'll see after that.

I have both a felt and rubber mat. Not sure I can tell a difference but the best sound has been when using both mats! with the rubber mat sitting on the felt mat; and with appropriate adjustment in tonearm height. 

While cost is not necessarily a quality gauge, with $6,500 list in my digital and less than a $1,000 list in the analog; I keep thinking real improvement is going to require a better table and cartridge.

Anyway, I appreciate the comments that have been shared on this thread. I have learned a lot. 

At some point, I am going to be looking for another tube amp so stay tuned!

Thanks, Dsper

PrimaLuna: perfect starter tube amp. Probably keep it for life too. 

KISS
Hard to go wrong with this.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/202861166451

https://rogershighfidelity.com

Also
https://www.ravenaudio.com

And ah
https://www.primaluna-usa.com

Keep in mind that sibilance is in a lot of vocal recordings; if you try to kill it by rolling off the tweeter (the resistors you mention), something else might be lost.  The most annoying vocal sibilance I hear tends to be in classical choral recordings, but then again, sibilance is pretty prominent in live choral performances as well.  

Have you tried experimenting with speaker placement, toe-in and rake angle?  In particular, toe-in and rake angle can change the sound quite a bit in the range where sibilance occurs.  

While cost is not necessarily a quality gauge, with $6,500 list in my digital and less than a $1,000 list in the analog; I keep thinking real improvement is going to require a better table and cartridge.

I had what I thought was a really nice digital front end. Very happy with it. Until I got the idea to drag out my 30 year old Technics to compare, just for kicks. The cantilever on the Stanton 681EEE had somehow gotten bent. Pliers bent it fairly straight looking enough without breaking, this is just for fun anyway, oh wait I need a phono stage, drag out an even older Kenwood integrated (back in the 70's they all had phono stages built in) and fired it up. Holy crap. What the.... was still playing records when the wife came home. That sounds really good, what is it? Tom Petty. No I mean what, it sounds so good! (She couldn't see the turntable, assumed it was some kind of special CD.) Its a record. Dang! Well it sounds really good!  

If your $1k table isn't kicking butt on your DAC its not the table. Its the setup, or your choices (AT? Really?). 

Get some Nobsound springs ($30) adjust so its almost fully compressed using the least amount of springs you can. This will improve bottom end while taming the top end, and you will be able to fine tune and tailor the amount by adding springs or weight. Less springs/more weight more bottom end/less top end. And vice versa.

Then when you go shopping for a better table skip everything that uses an interconnect. Interconnects on phono adds a whole bunch of connections, each one harmful to the delicate phono cartridge signal. Interconnects introduce noise, distortion, and expense. Stick with arms with hard wired phono leads. Better sound, less money.