Do tubes matter beyond gain stage on preamp?

It depends on the topology of the preamp, as to how many tubes are used. 

well, if i had a client with a tight budget, i would advise gain stage first….but in my experience they all matter eventually as ratchet up performance across the system.

Can hardly wait to get the tube power supply for my….wait for it….direct drive turntable….

Heavy - next time you find a MC240 for $1,100 buy it for me…..

of course, a lot of the magic are those lovely high bandwidth output transformers….

@emergingsoul said: "So better to have a couple tubes vs no tubes.

ie. Harmonic distortion is highly desirable vs flat ss."

I'm not sure I agree with that broad an approach. You can discuss euphonies and take it to an extreme, but not all tube equipment sounds like tubes. And contrariwise, I had a line stage with a solid state audio path in one chassis and a tube rectified power supply in another. I did not sound like solid state. 
If this is just to chat about tube properties being less desirable, I'm not your guy. 

what i find interesting are the designers who are capable of working w both…. two come to mind … Vandersteen and Aesthetix..there are a lot more if we throw the use of FET as front end to tube phono stages, many many more….. 

@noromance yes! i have same neon and swap was meaningful, there are two “ hidden “ FET in my RS

Shall, I send it your way for the cold midwinter ?