Jeff Rowlands Amp and Dac vs. VAC amp and DAC

Don't underestimate the "work" necessary for tube power amplifiers!  Tube enthusiast will tell you it's no big deal, but it's similar to when motorheads tell you manual transmissions aren't any more demanding than auto trans.  Aging tubes, heat from tubes, matching and biasing tubes, tube rolling, turn on/off procedures, warm up times for optimum listening, etc.  Experienced audiophiles tend to downplay these issues.  I am not trying to discourage you, but you need to proceed with your eyes open.

You've been offered some really good advice in this thread and I suspect that whatever way you'll go, you'll be very happy.  Unfortunately, I think it will be the wrong decision.  Rather than decide between tubes and solid state you could simply choose both.  I've owned Rowland equipment for decades and think the company and products are first rate, but for the price of the Aeris and 625 you could buy a premium DAC, a solid state power amp and a tube power amp.  Whenever the mood strikes you could switch from one power amp to the other and enjoy their respective benefits.  To put some numbers to it, I'm talking about DACs in the $5k area and power amps in the $5-7k range.

Rinpoche, to a some extent price is not an indicator of quality.  Both the VAC and the Rowlands are truly premium quality products that charge premium prices.  I'm not going to argue that you could match or exceed their sound quality at a substantially lower price, but I do argue that you can achieve the sound qualities you desire at a lower price.  You would have to do a side by side comparison to uncover the "lesser" components and fortunately long term happiness doesn't involve side by side comparisons.

Specifically, both Rowland and Ayre make integrated solid state amps in the $10k area.  Pass, Hegel and BAT make solid state power amps in the $5-8k range.  RAM makes a wonderful tube power amp at $5k.  Grace, Mytek, Esoteric (Teac), MSB and Bricasti make great quality DACs that can all be used as preamps at a lower cost than the Rowland.

These are my opinions, so take them for what they are.  From you post it sounds like you have good ears -- ultimately you should trust them.

Rinpoche, what other loudspeakers did you listen to when you picked the Sabrinas?

The OP loves her Wilson's, but I do believe she mentioned earlier that she had not listened to any competing loudspeakers when she acquired them.  Her frame of reference is limited.

From reading these forums it's my observation that new audiophiles don't have long-term success in building truly high end systems in one shot.  To Inna's point, it's too complex.  I'm not sure if this also applies to music lovers and I'm most interested to find the outcome for the OP.

First song, you mean after the break-in test tones?