I would not sell the LM Audio. It’s a great unit. I would keep it and get a tube preamp to try the new setup. See if you like it after awhile. I noticed that my LM Audio 216i (push/pull) got a little hot. I built a small wooden open enclosure, like a small table and it fits over top of the amp, I cut 2 squares in the top about 4 inches by 4 inches and placed two quiet fans inside which draw air and heat away from the tubes. If you look at my system with the Tekton speakers you can see it. Good luck.
Line Magnetic 805ia vs high end seperates
I really love my Line Magnetic except for a few items, I use it in a HT and use it’s bypass and I really don’t like having it run when watching movies, those are some high dollar tubes to watch burn away. The other is that it runs HOT, not bad in the winter but gets a bit much in the summer as the summers are hot here.
I’ve thought about putting some on-wall speakers for HT use and just run it all thru my Lexicon AVR and having the LM be used for only music but then I also have been upgrading my system and would like to maybe sell the LM and buy a much nicer preamp.
I have a Digital Audio Company Cherry 2 channel class D amp that has been sitting for some time and it’s a gem of an amp. So I thought of maybe selling the LM and buying an older Conrad Johnson tube pre (ACT2, ET5, have always wanted one) or something else in the $3-5k range, and use the cherry amp. I could keep the tube sound with the preamp. My speakers are an easy drive (Tannoy Arden GR), so in the next few years, I would then upgrade to SET monoblocks if I wanted to upgrade beyond the class D amp.
I am just wondering if going in that direction would really give me a better sound. It would help in the HT bypass department in not burning thru 300b and 805 tubes and would run cooler but would it ultimately sound much better?