How make my Ayre system "warmer"?

I'd upgrade your source first. Ayre's high end stuff is very, very good, but expensive. If you want to take one step at a time, then buy the best CD/SACD player that you can afford. Move up in preamp first.

SS is great and Ayre is one of the best. However, if you budget is limited, then tubes do tend to be more musical at the price range that your at. Still, I wouldn't replace any amplification equipment until you've really upgraded your source. Lots of nasty things happen in less expensive CDPs. Tubes can cover that up and smooth it, but not fix it. To fix it you need a better source, sorry to say.

Dave

Well, tell us about your room and speaker placement. Do female vocalists often seem "shouty" leading you to turn the volume down. If so, that's a symtem of poor speaker placement, with lots of intermodulation distortion in the room. Search for Sumiko Master Set for some ideas about properly setting your speakers. This is a highly likely problem.

Also, do you hear a lot of glare and edge? That would likely be coming from you CDP. Unfortunately fixing that costs dollars. Tubes won't clear this up. Great tubes and great SS sound pretty much alike. Unfortunately the bad SS, which you don't have, sounds harsh and bad tubes can sound euphonically warm. The best of both are very, very close to each other, and expensive.

So, tell us about your room and start looking around for a superior CDP.

Dave

MrT, I agree with your definition of warmth, it's an inaccurate frequency response, as you describe. I find that many people say they want "warmth" but really mean that they want freedom from "edge" and "glare" and "shout." Generally you work those things out with a combination of speaker placement and quality source components. When you elect accuracy, then you must seek sources that don't added inaccurate high frequency components, like edge and glare.

Dave

Al suggested:
"Which in turn suggests addressing the harmonic structure of the system's response, not just the frequency response. Meaning, very conceivably, increasing the amount of even-order harmonic distortion. Just what adding a tube-based cd player or other tube component would do, as several of us have suggested"

Many people take Al's route, but adding even-order harmonics smear and obscure any true richness in the recording itself. Some of us strive to clear up the midrange with careful selection of components that don't add glare and edge. Vibration control, IC selection, PC selection and speaker cable are all integral to achieve a stress free, open system that passes along all the openness of the best recordings.

This is true of the very best tube and SS system. Some lesser systems take the "cover up" route. The clarity route IS expensive and harder to achieve than the "cover up" route, unfortunately.

Dave