The retube on a ph-3 is dirt cheap - $40-50 or so. The tubes live 2000 hours. I would go to someone other than ARC for the tubes. They are (sovtek?) standard 6922's. ARC really overcharges for their tubes these days.
On the topic of cartridge loading: The ph-3 comes from the factory with input impedance = 47K ohms, input capacitance = 90 pF. Your ph-3 should have come with a set of resistors that you have to solder into the ph-3 to change the loading characteristics. Your ph-3 manual will have a table of resistor to loading. If you don't have this table I will post it for you. An easy thing you can also try is to look at your line stage preamp and see if it has any inputs that take a lower input setting. My ref1 preamp's aux1 input was 3 db lower than the rest of the inputs. I found using this input worked better for my phono stage. Good luck.
On the topic of cartridge loading: The ph-3 comes from the factory with input impedance = 47K ohms, input capacitance = 90 pF. Your ph-3 should have come with a set of resistors that you have to solder into the ph-3 to change the loading characteristics. Your ph-3 manual will have a table of resistor to loading. If you don't have this table I will post it for you. An easy thing you can also try is to look at your line stage preamp and see if it has any inputs that take a lower input setting. My ref1 preamp's aux1 input was 3 db lower than the rest of the inputs. I found using this input worked better for my phono stage. Good luck.