I'm considering replacing my passive preamp with a tubes. Is it worth it?


I would like to know if it would be worth it to trade my passive preamp for tube.  Would the change make a significant improvement?  

My setup:

Magnepan MG .7
Mod Squad Line Drive passive preamp
Bryston 4b-st amp
Rythmik f12 sub
Bluesound Node
Tidal streaming

My budget on a preamp would be $1k.  If the answer is "yes" then opinions would be welcomed.

thanks



amritash
 @amritash what do you feel is missing from the sound coming out of your setup?
Hello,


I appreciate everyone’s thoughtful feedback. Thiefoflight that is a spot-on question. I had a weird problem happen. I was having trouble with the volume going high enough and it sounded muted  The source of it turned out to be the iPhone from which I was streaming the Tidal to the Bluesound Node. I found out that my sound improved enormously when I replaced the iPhone 6 plus with a 7 plus.on the old phone. Not fathoming it could be the source I assumed it was the passive not providing enough gain. I just so happened to discover this because I smashed the iPhone 6 and needed to get a new one. This had been going on for weeks and just replaced the phone two days ago.


 I never would have thought about getting one had the problem with the phone never occurred. It sounds awesome again now. But since I got the bug in my head about the potential to get it even better I’m still pondering the value of adding the tube preamp.


@amritash Interesting. Were you streaming (selecting your Node as output) from Tidal, or using the headphone jack from the iPhone as an input to the Bluesound? Considering that the stream should only be data and the Bluesound was converting to digital and amplifying, then I don't know how the quality should have been different from the 6 to the 7. If you were doing this with a bluetooth adapter for Bluesound, then it would be a much different story as iPhone doesn't support aptX, so that means that it is getting processed by the iPhone's DAC and voltage before streaming out, and that would be why the iPhone 6 sounds so much more inferior to the iPhone 7.

Outside of the gain issue, I think more detail on where you think your sound can improve overall (do you feel that specific tones are missing or too shrill? bass too sluggish? etc) would help understand whether an active preamp would help.

I'm a big fan of tubes, but it's also a pandora's box... one that has allowed me to really fine tune my sound, but also spin my head in circles at unnecessary times.



Anyone else make a preamp that is switchable between tubes and SS stage?  They Freya looks good but I need at least 5 (6?) RCA inputs and I want it in black without the clicking volume control.

Thanks everyone...