going from tube preamp to solid state

I will never ever get rid of my tube audio equipment.  Preamp or power amp. I also will never ever give up my solid state power amp or preamp.  They both have there own area's of sound reproduction plus and minus.  I have 3 different systems each one of th has a tube preamplifier connected to a solid state power amplifier.  Solid state for the deep more control bass and tube for liquid midrange and sweet silky highs.i also have system with just solid state equipment and one system that's all tube- power amp  and preamp.  Like I mentioned earlier they both have there plus and minus but I need both to make ears whole.

So let me get this straight; you like the sound of your preamp but not the tubes in it?  How do questions like this get past the moderator?  All I'll say is that if you listen to records through a low (0.2 mV or lower) output cartridge, odds are a solid state preamp will be quieter with less hiss and less typical tube noise.

I don't have experience with good tube preamps and want to avoid them due to maintenance, microphonics, noise, distortion, and power usage. I just received my benchmark HPA4 and have been pleased so far. The clarity, imaging, and wide bandwidth are amazing. 30 day money back and the HPA4 is $3300 and the LA4 w/o headphone is $2900. I came here to say that PCs and fuses can help you tailor the sound, even with these types. Look at the rest of your system too. My next stop in a guest for warmth with all SS, all digital is the wall outlet. I have Furutech GTD-R which has a bit of U shaped EQ, and was suggested to use SR Purple or Audience outlets.

Maybe some heavy McMasters felt glued on the front of your large floor standing speakers would help with imaging. Like old Dunlavys or Wilsons. I plan to try that with my psb platinum T8 towers.

@nagel

If you really love great sound quality you really deserve to own a great tube preamp. It is easy to develop a list of potential problems with a technology and stay a way from it.

For several decades I stayed away from tubed amps. For me, it was a real mistake. The “problems” were so minuscule and the benefits so large it isn’t funny. I have owned tubed preamps for decades and tube amps for only about 5,000 hours of listening time (the last 4 years). I wish I had allowed myself to get a great tube amp decades ago.

My experience. But most of the audiophiles I know switched to tubes late and never went back to so,I’d state,

OK, so you have PBN speakers (someone mentioned that you owned them but I didn't see it in a search), they are 42 inches from the front wall and they are firing straight ahead and your room is 12x11x8.  Fairly small room for PBN speakers, it seems.  I looked at the PBN website and most of their speakers are large and horn loaded in the high frequencies. Their smallest speaker has two eight inch woofers and a ribbon high frequency driver and the ribbon seems to be mounted in a waveguide/small horn as well.  Not sure if you know, but horn speakers are very directional and in your smaller sized room, a lot of the high frequency information may be going right past you, straight to the back wall.  A lot of set up advice tells you to keep speakers away from the side walls.  For most speakers that have dome tweeters, this is very good advice.  In your case, not so much.  Horns and dipole speakers (electrostatics, planars, etc.) can be placed much closer to side walls without adverse effects.  I would try moving your speakers closer to the sidewalls (maybe a foot and a half to two feet away, experiment) and toe them in a bit, not pointing at your ears, but maybe at your shoulders and see if that helps.  Toe-in too much and the soundstage will close down and get smaller, too little tow in and the sound can sometimes become more diffuse.  I currently own a 6SN7 preamp, and it has a marvelous soundstage, but then I am running some Sylvania "Bad Boys" from the early 1950's, so that helps. They were a dramatic change from the Chinese tubes that it shipped with.  I have also owned  preamps with 6922's and a couple of preamps with 12AX7"s. They all had an excellent soundstage.  I have also run several SS preamps, and they also threw a quite decent soundstage.  In a room your size I would personally try some monitor speakers that are known for their imaging and a sub woofer or two, depending on how much bass you like.  The only other thing I can think of to suggest, is to reverse the phase on one end of your speaker cable.  Just swap positive to negative on each speaker and see if that works.  If that works, rock on and let us know.  If not, don't forget to change them back.  Hope this helps.