What's A Good Upgrade From A Manley Steelhead?

@drbond Thanks for the input. I didn't spend close to $1000 on different tubes. Perhaps that's something I should invest more into before I give up on the Manley.

As an aside, I had both the Zesto Andros 1.2 and a Manley Chinook here before I bought the Steelhead. The Chinook was what I would unreservedly refer to as 'tubey'. The Zesto was far more neutral and a little more clinical, but more dynamic than the Chinook. The Steelhead captured the strengths of both and combined them. So yes, it has some evidence of tubeyness in its presentation, I'm just looking for a tad more, without losing the dynamic capability and all its other virtues. I'll have a look around for the early 1960's Siemens CCa tubes, as you've suggested.

Cheers

Rooze

It has been brought to my attention that I mis-spoke in my post and am unable to edit my post. The Allnic H-5500 was bested by the Allnic H-3000 that I had purchased. The H-6500 is a Preamp and not a Phonostage. 

In describing the H-6500 as a "preamp", I presume you mean either that it is a full function preamplifier with a built in phono section or that it is a linestage, with no phono section. (You must be young; in the good old days there were very few standalone phono stages, and the word "preamplifier" assumed a linestage with built in phono stage.)  If the H-6500 to which you refer is a linestage (only), then from what I know of Allnic nomenclature, wouldn't it be called "L-6500"? Since Allnic do not currently market a full function preamplifier, that would seem to be the case.  On their website, I do see L-6500 but not any H-6500.  The H-5500 appears to be the current latest revision of the H-1201 and H-1202.  I ask because somewhere else I was led into this same quandary regarding the possible existence of an H-6500 phono stage.

Although I am not an ardent admirer of tube rolling as a way of upgrading performance, I do use Siemens CCa's in my Steelhead.  Do I think they made a big difference? No, but they are "nice".

I just checked what I have for tubes in the Steelhead:

Amperex 6dj8 orange globe x2 for gain

I bought a quad of TUNG-SOL 5687WA Blackplate Big D getter but they created some noise, so I switched back in the JAN NOS GE 7044. My understanding is that there's no technical reason why the output buffers should impact the sound, so there's little point in spending a lot of money on those. 

@rooze  : I can see that you are way demanding with that " bass " in the PS Audio unit.

Fremer was using the WA  ALEXX paired with Dartzeel Monoblocks and top of the line Dartzeel phonolinepreamp, no tubes at all an in true high resolution system and I think that the Stellar made a great job down there that any Allnic/Manley/VAC or tube unit can touch it.

As the Dartzeel or the CH the PS Audio phono stage is not perfect but for the " huge " 2.5K price tag you can't ask for more.

R.