First, how is your cd player connected? Digital or Analog? If you are using digital then a tube cd player is not going to help you unless you switch to a non-digitizing pre-amp (or you have analog bypass). If you are using digital, look at the Audio Alchemy DTI, for $50 it will help to remove a lot of digital hash. I went through a similiar situation and decided to split my HT from my 2 channel. Ended up selling my klipsch for less forward w/ss speakers. I chose a PS Audio 6.0 linestage pre-amp which ran about $225. The difference between analog on the pre vs. analog/digital (if your receiver does analog to digital conversion they are going to sound almost the same) on the receiver was much bigger than switching cd players (i had a sony sacd player and a denon cd player). The moster HTS2000 was a big step, although the new 2100 you can get on ebay has a 2800 joule rating vs. the 1775 joule rating of the 2000 series. The power conditioner really helped to lower the noise floor and the anti-jitter filter really made the digital much more livable. I also tended to only make one change at a time so I could get used to living with the components and then making one change and auditioning it with source material I was very familiar with.
Who's to blame for the Grain??
I have a very very entry level system that I upgrading piece by piece. What I've noticed is that when I listen to music with vocals, there's a grainy texture to everyones voice. I don't hear that smoothness that I've heard from systems out the hi-end shops. I was curious whether there was a specific part of the chain that can cure the GRAIN. Is it interconnects, pre-amp, power amp, speaker cables or source. I am not using a power cord or a power conditioner,,,,,,,,,,,could this be the cause?