Do you start fine tuning the system with cables or tubes ?

 

inna OP

8,205 posts

05-10-2026 at 03:43pm 

I have only vintage tubes in the Avatar. I makes no sense to upgrade the source if your preamp/amp are underperforming
 

no doubt. But since you already own a great integrated amp, makes sense to look into source upgrades as opposed to going down the tube or cables rabbit hole 

@audphile1 

"Properly treated room will also reveal differences between cables, tubes and even masters of the same album much easier. It will reveal any inconsistency in performance of your tubed equipment on a day to day basis. You will be rolling tubes endlessly because tubes will be the first thing you will always suspect when the system sounds off. Eventually you will go on to listening to your equipment and what the tubes are doing instead of listening to music.
You will accumulate a large collection of tubes that’s worth half of what you spent on them initially. With today’s prices on vacuum tubes having 3-4 complete sets of tubes for VAC Avatar SE is about $3,000 - $4,000 for the modest non NOS  nothing fancy tubes. Before you know it, you will be thinking that spending this much to upgrade my table or cartridge or get an awesome phono stage would make so much more sense…but you’re stuck with tubes, looking at bias meters and scratching your head trying to figure out which tubes are contributing to the issue you’re troubleshooting. That’s a ton of fun and man does that add to the overall enjoyment of the hobby!"

Gee, I haven't rolled a tube in twenty years though I have moved a few things around in my listening room from time to time.

audphile1, you are right. I think, my system is fine tuned enough. Next step would probably be speakers upgrade. As for the source, well, Nottingham Spacedeck/Spacearm are quite good, separate tube phono stage perhaps to begin with.

@faustuss 

I’m being sarcastic here. I do love the sound of good tube gear. I don’t love tje maintenance though. My most recent tube component acquisition was a phono stage. I liked it a lot but I like my solid state phono as well and two weeks with tubes and tube rolling reminded me why I sold all my tube gear few years ago. I can’t deny the sound though. But properly designed modern solid state components don’t give anything up to modern solid state in my opinion 

@audphile1 

"I’m being sarcastic here. I do love the sound of good tube gear. I don’t love tje maintenance though. My most recent tube component acquisition was a phono stage. I liked it a lot but I like my solid state phono as well and two weeks with tubes and tube rolling reminded me why I sold all my tube gear few years ago. I can’t deny the sound though. But properly designed modern solid state components don’t give anything up to modern solid state in my opinion"

I've only ever had my equipment in every five years or so for the things that my technicians recommended. Cleaning and checking that everything is in spec, never recommended tube replacement. If you're having maintenance issues its probably all the micky-ing you're doing with the tube rolling and such. Left to what the designer intended they usually work fine for decades.