WILL IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

I went from transistors to FETS to vacuum tubes and I now have a mix of both.  My first vacuum tube preamp was the Dynaco, my power amps were Conrad Johnson's; now everything is CJ.  The sound is different and you will have to decide which you prefer, it is not an absolute.   I did find that moving to vacuum tubes meant I didn't leave the stereo running 18 hours a day, like I did with FETS or transistors.  My home theater does the 18 hour music fills the house job while the CJ are for personal listening.  Also keep in mind, it is not just the power consumption, which is like running a toaster when you turn the power switch on.   Tubes have a finite lifespan and you should look at then as a phono cartridge.  You know when you buy it, it won't last forever and at some point, you will spring for a new cartridge.  It won't be as expensive as your Hana, but your pocket book will feel the drainage when you spring for new tubes.   It takes my system about 100 hours or so to become, what I call, "steady state, vacuum tube sound".  Before that, it is a little louder and brighter.  

I'm surprised that you find the system a little bright.  What kind of room is it in?  Size?  Windows?  Absorbent vs. non-absorbest surfaces?

You also don't mention what ICs and SCs you're using.

@spatialking +10.

If you have gone from SS to Tube, what did you buy? What was the most striking difference out of the box and 300 hours in? Did you keep the speakers you had?

Back in the prehistoric days of Dolby Prologic, I became more & more interested in listening to music & less & less interested in watching movies. A guy at the gym I was working out at , in that period of time, had planted the vacuum tube seed in my mind, so after I bought my first piece of tubed gear (which was a Carver CD player) I started looking into a new amplifier & preamp to replace my Dolby Prologic integrated unit.

There was/is a true scarcity of better-end stuff to audition in my immediate vicinity, but I did locate a store that had a Cary SLA 70(which at the time was Cary’s entry level stereo tube amp, featuring tube rectification, a pair of 6SL7s, and four 6550s) and I thought that it sounded "pleasant", so I bought one. I don’t know that I immediately heard a huge difference, although I was not willing to admit it at the time due to what seemed to me (at the time) to be a huge cash output on the amp, better cables, better interconnects, and AV digital preamp. But as it broke in, and as I broke in, I realized that I was appreciating music more & more, and as tubes wore out & new tubes broke in, I came to recognize the sonic characteristics of both events.

In the course of owning that fore mentioned amp, I upgraded from a pair of NHT two way speakers to a pair of B&W 805s. That was a HUGE difference.

The longer I owned the Little Cary, the more I came to appreciate the attributes of "vacuum tube sound." But that little amp wasn’t making enough of it, and (for (what seemed like quite a while) I obsessed about more. When Stereophile reviewed the Mesa Baron (dual mono-blocks in one chassis, and I do not, off hand, recall the tube complement), I actually did find a dealer who had one & who let me take one home for the weekend. BIG difference: sound stage was in my face and all around, and being someone who arrives at general admission concerts hours early so I can sit in the front row in the center I liked that. But the sound had a smoky & musky quality, which I noted, and which did appeal to me in a way. Sunday night came and I had made up my mind that I was going to buy this amp, but the last thing I did before I went to bed was to hook my Little Cary back up & listen to Cowboy Junkies/Sweet Jane (again, as I had listened to it several times on the Baron) and I was blown away by the black background & the sound of the cymbals shimmering in the air with the Little Cary. The sound stage was smaller & flatter than that of the Baron, but it was so much cleaner, that I decided I did not want to make this trade off.

In ’97, or there abouts, I bought a used pair of Audio Research VTM 120s, sight unseen, from a classified ad in the back of Stereophile.6922s up front and four 6550s a piece up front. Those ARCs could do it all. They could scream when I wanted screaming, or they could whisper when I wanted quiet. I bought a better used Cary preamp in ’99, and after I got done retubing everything via Andy @ Vintage Tubes, I was happy for a while. Ecstatic on some nights. What did make me unhappy was that the ARCs had a bad habit of blowing grid resistors when they started up. I used to grit my teeth when I flipped the switches to ’ON.’ I kept a supply of grid resistors on hand & my soldering equipment handy.

It was that unreliability which led me to buy my current Amp, a Cary V-12 (EL 84s & 6922s up front and a dozen EL34s in back) and switchable between 50 watts triode & 100 ultralinear. There were times that this combination made me happy & satisfied. I am sure that I told myself that it sounded as good as the ARC based system did. In retrospect, I am not sure whether it did or not.

Regardless, I found all those tube amps (that I mentioned) that I have had in my home over nearly 30 years to have sonic qualities in common and also qualities that were, in my limited experience, to be unique to each. Tubed stuff seems, to me, to be like living beings. The tubes themselves seem to have personality quirks and some days the equipment seems to have good days, and on others, days that are not so good.

The room sounds like it’s bright to me. A good tube amp will not differ much from the Hegel. A bigger and/or a newer one might help you.

Or go all in with Atmosphere.