Shall I add a preamp to my setup?


I newly setup a system with Thiel CS 3.7 speaker, driving my Sim audio Titan 5 channel poweramp, source with Simaudio cd5.3, I am very excited with the 2 channel performance, but it seems lack of warmth of vocal and extension of high, not enough airly extensions, base is fine. I doubt my weakest link is the Sherbourn PT-7010A pre/pro, all the above new gear has pretty much break my bank, I wonder if I should squeeze the rest of bank reserve for a descent 2 channel preamp in order to solve the problem.....the other choice is a better CDP, can someone walked thru the similar path give me some advice?
grandetech
Seems adding a Tube preamp is a pretty good advice here, however, I have a home theater, is there any good tube pre has bypass feature? I read Modwright Tgrisham mentioned, any other choices? BAT does not mention one in his web info, does anyone know if it does?

More advice is welcome. I am considering Sim audio P5.3 s.s. pre which cost me $4k.
Conrad Johnson Met1 6 channel hybrid tube preamp added warmth and imaging to my denon ht setup. Might be just the thing to compliment the Titan.
Grandetech

Tube pre with pass through, huh?

That shouldn’t be too difficult a thing to come by these days as many makers are putting that into their designs for the HT systems everyone is doing now.

Personally, I feel the two, stereo and HT should remain separate things for consistency’s sake… I’ve been unable to make a pair of tube mono blocks sound like solid state nor do I care too… then with some pass through preamps, they need to be on, and there’s that added pair of interconnects too. In any case, it should be a simple task to find one I suspect.

I have a Thor preamp… they ain’t being made now. The designer took a powder on us… but they are a stellar item sonically speaking. Some of them were made with pass throughs for HT.

Mark Mickelson had one for a time too…. Then went to a VTL 7.5. In his review of the VTL 7.5 he compared it to the Thor saying it was no better sonically but offered more versatility. I would think the VTL 6.5, would offer a great deal of the 7.5s performance for far less… but that’s sheer speculation.

I would also think the aspect to look for in a tube preamp is it’s inclination to the musicality aspect, over the speed and resolution facet… which is what I suspect you seek. I wasn’t terrigbly impressed by the new CJ preamps I heard. They sounded far more akin to solid state than to tube designs. I hear some of the older CJ pres were far more about the warmth and midrange though.

I’m really at a loss to add much here for you to investigate in this regard. I will say, having owned a BAT VK 5i, that either it or the VK5i SE should certainly do what you want and are well within your price range with lots left over… if you don’t mind buying older gear.

Perhaps VAC should also be on your short list, and maybe even Quadd… with $6K in hand for a preamp I’d still look at the VTL stuff, then VAC… and probably ART Audio & ARC… but that’s just me.
I am new at Tube amp, how long do I need to change the tubes, how will I know if its done? Any other advice on handling a tube will be appreciated.
BTW, is it dangerous to buy a tube preamp used? Particularly not knowing the remaining life of the expensive tubes.