Gentleman,
First of all, many thanks for such informative (and spirited) responses, and I failed to mention that I do have all of my components plugged into an APC S-15 power conditioner/sine wave generator/battery backup. I think that I will check out some tubes in the preamp and the Cardas cables to start with, spend some time with those, and listen. The CD player is fairly new (well-reviewed recently), and it is actually a CD5004 (not the CD3000,my goof), so I think it will stay at least for a while until I can eliminate other components. Those with the 1/2Es seem to agree that they are not at fault.
First of all, many thanks for such informative (and spirited) responses, and I failed to mention that I do have all of my components plugged into an APC S-15 power conditioner/sine wave generator/battery backup. I think that I will check out some tubes in the preamp and the Cardas cables to start with, spend some time with those, and listen. The CD player is fairly new (well-reviewed recently), and it is actually a CD5004 (not the CD3000,my goof), so I think it will stay at least for a while until I can eliminate other components. Those with the 1/2Es seem to agree that they are not at fault.