Looking for opinion, Cary 303/300, thinking about

I have the feeling you guys who allude to analog have grown accustomed to a particular form of distortion. Using a needle to track waves in vinyl seems archaic. Distortions induced by digital signal processing would seem to pale in comparison. If a microphone is used during recording, the acoutical signal is transduced to an electrical stream. I'm surprised you guys don't object to that intervention, and insist on a cutting lathe driven directly by acoustics. Then you could talk about how open and airy that sounds compared to recordings in which an electrical signal was used. You could sit around with your ear glued to acoustic trumpets -- maybe even two platters and trumpets for stereo -- and exclaim at the purity of sound. So open, so airy, so warm.

db

Dont hold back Don, tell us how you really feel! =)

I better sell all of my vinyl, according to db it really sucks. Digital rules! NOT!

Tele ECC82 smooth plate - lots of air, very clean, transparent, lots of bloom, very liquid sound, strong sense of palpable image. Nice tall soundstage - the instruments have great bloom.
RCA clear top 12AU7 - very musical and dimensional, but not my favorite in the 303-300

Siemens 1960's ECC82 (called chrome plates, but I think it may be nickel) - shiny plates, very palpable, very textured mid-range, nice holographic soundstage and deep taut bass

Tele ECC802S - my overall favorite, it just does everything right, has the tallest, widest soundstage. All sound and ambient cues just fall in place. The music flows, simply flows.

Valvo E80CC - very liquid bass, mid-bass and mid-range, sounds a bit rolled off from the mids up

Amperex PQ 6085 (E80CC) - wow, these have the nice bass, mids and liquid sound and a nice high end, lacks a little of the soundstaging of the Tele ECC802S, but still very very nice

RT (RadioTechnique French govt/military 1960s) 12AU7 - lots of air, lots of subtle ambient cues, very good sound, these are really nice too

Tube rolling is a must to get the best performance from this player.

Also, I recommend using the balanced outputs if you can.

And yes, bypassing the preamp and driving the amps directly results in a more transparent sound, more immediate/palpable.

Oldvinyl - thanks very much for the input. I'm expecting delivery of my Cary 303/300 shortly and will be trying a few of the tubes you suggested.