Signal tube versus power tube, sound impact?

Seems to me the preamplifier tubes Carry the most weight when dealing with the sonic signature. It's at the beginning and why would you not want to amplify a quality signal right away. If you have a crappy preamplifier tube it's going to get amplified and sound crappy no matter how good the rest of the tubes are .

Anyone ever see a good diagram showing the circuitry flow within an amplifier or a good walk-through of the incoming power and incoming signal and how they ultimately do stuff before they go through the Cable leading to the speaker? And of course showing all the various tubes in series etc.  

Pleased to hear the opinion that power tubes matter more than signal tubes (only because that's what I have found to be true and I'm a confirmation whore.) Shirley you must know that this flies against common wisdom that pairs tube preamps with solid state power amps. 

Seems to me the preamplifier tubes Carry the most weight when dealing with the sonic signature.

This has been my experience, except in the case where the tubes in my amp were getting worn out & tired.

Shirley you must know that this flies against common wisdom that pairs tube preamps with solid state power amps. 

@mambacfa  , I cannot find the post in which Shirley weighed in on this one. 

I’m giving the new Apos Ray 12AU7 tubes a spin in my BHK pre and I am quite impressed so far.

https://apos.audio/products/apos-ray-tube-12au7 36

Apos / Ray are cagey about their provenance (China, most likely) and they claim to only accept the top 4% of production, whatever that means.

At $180 per matched pair, they are priced near the top of new production tubes (e.g., Gold Lion), but much cheaper than almost any worthy NOS 12AU7s, and believe me, I have a ton of them in my stash.

WIth 100+ hours on them, they are quite impressive compared to the NOS Ciftes that preceded them, which were smooth and inviting, a bit on the warm side and not particularly incisive.

The Ray tubes are a different animal altogether–big, dynamic and quite detailed without any hardness or edge. They throw a huge soundstage, with powerful, yet tight and textured bass.

Worth a try…