question of soundstage

I will preface my response by saying I am not an audio engineer and do not have experience with your equipment.  I will present my experience in the pursuit of sound stage as it relates to electronics.  Another preface is that the speakers, room, wiring and power  quality also apply.  From the perspective of electronics the factors that affect sound stage are channel separation/cross-talk, noise, detail retrieval, and macro/micro-dynamic retrieval.  Modern electronics have excellent channel separation.  I focus on detail retrieval and micro-dynamic retrieval and its impact on soundstage when evaluating new electronics.  I listen for how the equipment produces secondary harmonics and decay, leading edge reproduction, detail of the micro dynamics during decay, background noise, imaging and stage.  I have a few test tracks I use.  As an example, when I upgraded from my well maintained ‘97 vintage pre and power amp to my current integrated amp the improvements in these areas created a sound stage that was much improved and realistic.  So you cannot generalize that your tube amp will give a better sound stage than your solid state.  Your solid state may just be performing better than your tubes in the performance areas I mentioned. I believe my integrated amp performs as good if not better than most tube products I have auditioned, noting that I personally  am bias to the cooler clarity of well designed solid state vs tube equipment. 

Maybe try some tube rolling?  When I rolled from OEM tubes on my McIntosh C220 pre to Mullard reissues, my sound stage did widen a bit.

carlsbad2

You should not speculate and write negatively if you do not know about Cayins.

My Cayin A88T was deigned in Germany, built in China: hand built, point to point. Beautiful workmanship inside and out.

This extremely positive review is why I bought my Cayin A88T which sounds terrific.

https://6moons.com/audioreviews/cayin/a88t.html

excerpt

"The Cayin 88T is the first integrated amp I’ve ever had in my system that sounds so good, I have absolutely no desire to go back to the big mono block amps and the preamp. In fact, in many ways, the Cayin sounds better!"

"No, I didn’t decide to start this review with my summation. That wasn’t me talking. That’s a famous American manufacturer speaking".

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The more powerful A100T is also a terrific tube amp, 8 power tubes, individual bias pots and meter. Subsequent mark 2 and 3; and other models like the A100T have external bias adjusters and meters

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What tubes are in an amp is part of the different sound between amps.

Mine came with 6550 power tubes, I changed to KT88’s. It sounded great with the 6550’s, I prefer the KT88’s.

Bias: when switching tubes, I had the bias adjusted by Steve at VAS who used to be the distributor of Cayin USA. (my mark 1 has needed 16 ohm taps, bias is internal, no meter)

I blew a 6sn7 (put in 6sl7 socket), bought a matched pair, they sounded awful. Brent Jesse let me return/try a different brand, they sound as hood as the originals.

Thus, I would wonder what tubes are in OP’s very high quality Cayin.

I guess I should try some different preamp tubes. The speakers that I am using are the Tekton lore reference.