Involving, that’s my criteria. Less involving, goodbye.
If it (ANYTHING) immediately gives a sound that alters your prior preferred sound, returrn it, sell it, give it away! Don’t try to get used to it. Don’t try this or that cable to fix something to equal your prior preferred sound. It proves your existing equipment is just right for you!
Losing Remote Control for an equal or less involving sound makes no sense.
My vintage tube pre-amp which I love lacks remote anything. I changed to an Integrated Amp (Cayin A88T), just to get remote volume, which my prior vintage mono-blocks lacked (fisher 80-az). I risked it based on a 6 Moons review.
Prior Mcintosh Amp also lacked remote volume, and even if it had it, the remote beam would not have a clear path to operate. I went back to tubes anyway because they were more involving, and I had switched back to my current very efficient speakers, so I could drop down from 250 wpc to 30 wpc.
It HAD to sound as good as those Mono Blocks or I was going to sell it, even taking a loss, because return was not an option.
Luckily it sounds terrific, equally Involving, I sold my Fisher 80-az’s to Steve at VAS.
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Tube Equipment, that’s a different ballgame, because different tubes can definitely sound significantly different (far more than any cable change). It is possible changing the tubes would equal or better the sound/involvement. Equal, forget it, go back to remote control. More involving, hooray!
That’s a game of rolling the dice. I blew up a 6sl7 by putting it into a 6sn7 socket. 1st time I ever didd that in 45 years). 1st set of replacements sounded terrible. Luckily Brent Jesse let me break them in (still didn’t like them), return them, try something else, half the price, sound great. I felt/feel lucky I got back to where it sounded terrific.
Like Cartridges, nearly everything, it’s ’preferred, not better’. My Cayin is ’better’ because of features, not sound.