Tube Amp, Preamp upgrades -- what did you do that improved your units?

@wsphohn I appreciate your opinion. I’m not swayed. This gear, as Grannyring and decooney have pointed out, is clearly built to a price point. It is not in the league of better Curl or Berning gear. A $4 Orange cap as being intentionally part of an amp design? That does not strike me as plausible an explanation as the price point explanation. The preamp came with $13 tubes in it. Should I have left them alone? (I realize tubes may be a different thing...but still.)

The testimony of other owners of this gear is that it very much advances the gear into another level up -- so, rather than spending thousands more for another preamp and amp, I’ll spend hundreds. Everything is reversible if I don’t like it.

@terryakhan Things may get better. May get worse. I suppose that this is a level of risk I’m willing to take. That’s what this hobby means, for me at least.

Can be lower risk and higher reward when high quality-upgrade replacement parts of exact same specs are used and installed by a competent tech.  

Watch a Paul M video from PSAudio where they fully acknowledge even their higher end gear is all designed and built to a price point to control costs, keep pricing down, increase profitabilty, not using overly exotic parts.  And, then sharing in their other design lab they build and upgrade experimental prototypes built with the best parts available to help determine what is truly possible to achieve the best sound. "What is now proved was once only imagined" ― William Blake

How about upgrading transformers?

Do QuickSilver amps have high enough quality transformers and they don't need to be replaced?

Hilde45,

I believe a call to QS is worthwhile. You tell them what you're looking for in sound production. Tell them your system. My guess, your room has as much to do with your dissatisfaction. That aside, QS will give you insights, regardless of getting their ego bruised. It's worth hearing their opinions.

You've received lots of opinions in this thread, which probably has left you with more questions than narrowed your choices for the right direction. I agree with your price point perspective. Lean on that with QS. "I'm assuming this amp was built to a price point, which makes perfect sense. If the price point was $500 higher, what would you have done differently with this amp to improve it, not essentially creating a new amp? Second question, do you offer these upgrades in-house?"

Those questions offer respect and acknowledgement of their intentions of quality. You also lean on them for their opinions and technical expertise. If they still get bothered, then you go elsewhere...I doubt they will.

Send me a pm here and we can talk more if you want.

Goodluck

I found a great improvement to my tube amp was to buy a power conditioner this made a big difference! I bought one for like $500 and it worked great!