Last I knew recording studios virtually always have tubes in the microphone amplifiers because they do somehow produce a warmer, less sterile sound.. What does that actually mean? I'm not sure, but the folks who make a living from music prefer tubes for vocals, or they did 10 or so years ago, I haven't revisited the subject in quite a while. OTOH, there are tubes, and there are tubes. The E6SN7s in a good circuit are awesome, most post WWII Sylvania tubes AFAIK, all suck, and the WWII and before Sylvanias are insanely expensive. So, it can become an insanely expense hobby once you start rolling tubes. The new Gold Lion line from New Sensor, in my finite experience are extremely good, and as stated, the E6SN7's by Linlai are awesome in a good circuit. If you want to check it out inexpensively I would recommend Schiit Audio's Lyr. I don't know how good their new Freya preamps are, I sold my original Freya it required 2 particular tubes to sound reasonably good, and I mean reasonably good. I got the Lyr out of curiosity, but it sounds pretty decent with the E-6SN7 tube. A set of E-6SN7 tubes are about as expensive as the preamp, but I tried getting individual tubes to save money, they were mostly garbage, pay up and get the manufacturer tested pair, even though your only using one at a time. That's an inexpensive introduction to a very good entry level preamp. The Vali 2 with a nice Siemens tube isn't bad either, but the Lyr better represents the full potential of a tube preamp. From there, I'd recommend a DS2, Don Sachs hand makes them, and he is semi-retired so he has slowed down production. They don't often show up on the used market, and the older ones don't have the option to use a better diode tube, etc.
Are tubes psychological?
This just occurred to me this morning as I listened in my rather dark listening room with the soft glow of tubed amps on the floor in front of me between the speakers: How much of my enjoyment of tubes gear is due to the relaxed state the glow puts my mind in?
Thoughts?