Which component to upgrade 1st ?

thanks @facten  and @audition-audio  

@audition__audio Her speakers are indeed a challenge to tubes. Likely in a perfect world the Ref150 would be a better choice. Warmth is something I've always preferred hence tubes. My preamp is good but is a hybrid, and I've had the opportunity to compare hybrid vs tube. Big difference, and big price jump. So it is a piece that has long been on the wishlist, just waiting for tons of extra money at my discretion. Like most of us.

I'll put in a counterpoint for consideration. Consider isolation, power cords and interconnects. Depending on what you have and when the last time was that you truly evaluated these elements, it may be the biggest upgrade and change you will experience. Good mechanics is essential (as well has room acoustics) to optimizing your listening experience.

For example, I just upgraded my rack and turntable isolation to Core Audio and Minus K from Finite Elemente and Stillpoints Ultras. Earth shattering change. I'm serious--way beyond what I expected. And I expected a lot (even with a system that was pretty darn good going into it).

Give it some thought.

You've got to make spending count.  Must be a case for choosing between analogue and digital sources.  Why spend money on two competing systems?

Meanwhile some are putting money into power cords instead of active components.

I recently had the same dilemma, but took some sound advice: change sources, amps and speakers to change the flavour / character of your system; change DACs, pre-amps and cables to fine-tune it. So I recently bought a 2nd-hand Sonnet Morpheus DAC and a demo Primaluna Evo 400. Kept my Audiosolutions speakers, my Auralic Aries source, and my Ayon pre-amp, but I'm selling both my previous $5,000 (US) DAC and some $15,000 (US) mono-blocks. Couldn't be happier. You need to sort out the weak links in your system and do lots of research, but the answer doesn't always mean spending more, as there are some real audio 'pearls' out there and technology keeps moving on. In that regard, I would definitely think about MQA - despite what its many critics might say. I've dropped Quobuz and focused on Tidal because of it.   

@littlebrownkiwi01 …Change the flavor/character by changing the speakers/amp

…fine tune with DAC, preamp, and cables

Interesting, I hadn’t heard anything like that before. I keep wanting to put the preamp in with the speakers and amp. But… yeah… OK… it’s a generality… it makes sense. It could be useful for your first system or for making a major change in character of an existing system.

About 15 years ago I wanted to make a major change from planar speakers to a more natural coherent sound. I have always had a great preamp… I changed the speakers (to Sonus Faber) and then the biggest of the other changes was moving to a tube amp.

A rule of thumb that can be useful. Thanks for sharing.