Over Tubing it?

Thanks a lot for all of your thoughts on this.  Very helpful.  I am re-committing to the tube DAC for a while and just placed an order for some tubes from Brent Jesse.  I am interested in what rolling in other tubes will bring to or detract from my system.  

Cheers!

Well, there was a time when there was no way you could get amplification without tubes, so I don't think it's necessarily always true you can have too many.

I will say that the amp/speaker combination matters a great deal. For instance, Martin Logal ESL's often do better (but of course not always) with a beefy SS amp but the inclusion of a tube pre can be pretty magical.  Combination of a sweet little liar with a big iron hammer.

I've found my Black Ice Fusion F35 w/ KT88s, Denafrips Aries II, Tekton Lores set up with Tidal off of a Macbook to be my sweat spot. Absolutely incredible listening experience with all genres over the last year or so. Have been contemplating the KT150s though as my move from EL34s was appreciable.  

In comparison, my daily listening is through a Sansui G9000, Schiit Modi and Triangle BRO3 so I can bass up with loudness for low level listening; quite a bit different but still a very pleasing experience even if I'm only using about a third of the volume knob.

Hm, let's see--nine in the amp, seven in the linestage, six in the phono stage, and four in the headphone amp.  It is not the count that is scary, but the price of the individual tubes.  Ten of the tubes are in the $1,500-$2,000 each range, and the rest are not cheap either.  Fortunately, my tubes are run gently and do not need frequent replacement (haven't changed ANY in more than a dozen years).

Ten of the tubes are in the $1,500-$2,000 each range, and the rest are not cheap either. 

Sounds like you are running NOS western electric 300b tubes at that price.