Phono Preamp Tube Rush

It’s unfortunately a fact of life for us lovers of vacuum tube phono stages. Worse if you listen loud, like I do, of course. I’ve had the Hagerman and currently own a Herron. Both are about as quiet as low-rush noise as you’re going to get, especially the Herron. The Hagerman is a really nice sounding stage with romantic beautiful sound; I see why you love it. Sometimes I miss it and wish I’d kept it, but I moved on to a VAC that is better, though for much (!!) more money. If you like the Hargeman you’d probably love VAC phono stages, even the ones built into their integrateds and preamps.

The ONE factor you can play with to combat rush noise is to get a cartridge with a higher output level - that allows you to lower the preamp volume, and audible tube rush will reduce proportionally. The other thing to note is that is you’re loading your cartridge very heavily, you will lose some signal and that will allow tube rush from your phono stage to creep back up in relative level.

If you're using a low output MC cartridge, using an outboard SUT with a higher gain (and phono stage in MM mode) will also allow you to combat tube rush noise. 

Again I agree with @daveyf , you can hear tube rush noise on any tube phono stage with just a slight bit of effort (or no effort, depending on the unit). It’s there. Yes the Herron VTPH-2A is very very low noise, one of the lowest I’ve heard - still there. And low noise tube selection is a must, but there’s no magical premium-platinum-plus selection that’s going to make it go away completely. It’s an issue of gain - a LOT of it is needed to amplify cartridge signals.

That said, for my ears, when you get to the low noise level of a VTPH-2A or my VAC phono, it’s low enough to not bother about, since groove noise will take over from there.

On the other hand, hum and buzz from grounding issues are positively insanity-inducing until resolved.

I've also had the experience that some NOS tubes can make for a substantial increase of enjoyment over new production, despite the increased difficultly of finding super low-noise examples. 

First impressions of tube or component changes can be especially nebulous - because anything that the new component sonically accentuates can easily evoke a new emotional response that we can't help but latch onto. This can allow us to experience our favorite tracks in a different light, perhaps even noticing parts of the music we hadn't before. However on extended listening - we may notice the accentuation is really unnatural. We may even go back to our old component and suddenly that "new part" of the music is actually still there, we just hadn't listened for it before because it wasn't actually supposed to stand out, lol. 

Gear or tubes that have a high listening fatigue factor are particularly subject to this phenomenon - and listening to it gets old real quick!

Don't feel bad either, experience can help, but a lot of us (including myself) still fall for this same trap from time to time. 

@elliottbnewcombjr
The "rush" sound from your source components renders roughly the same on both efficient and inefficient speakers - because your efficient speakers are equally sensitive to both the noise to the signal (i.e. signal-to-noise ratio unaffected by speaker efficiency), and you simply set your volume control to the desired signal level (i.e. lower volume to compensate) - the ratio does not change.

With very low output MC cartridges you are reducing the signal without reducing your system’s noise floor (especially that before the volume control, i.e. phono stage), hence the issue - you have to raise the volume to hear same signal level, and thus you relatively amplify the phono stage’s noise level for the same signal level. The ratio gets worse as you go to lower output cartridges. Here is where SUTs can help - to raise your signal without raising noise (ground hums notwithstanding).

With very very efficient speakers as yours, you do have to become concerned about the inherent noise floor of your preamp and amp - i.e. the active gain stages AFTER the volume control. Especially the preamp, since its residual noise is un-attenuated, and amplified by the amp. Preamps that are dead quiet in normal systems may be quite noisy in yours! Generally you try to avoid high gain components with efficient speakers (mine Tannoys are an honest 96dB), but not all high gain components are equal - my ARC Ref 6 preamp has a demonstrably much lower noise floor than other tube preamps at roughly the same gain level (14 dB). It is dead quiet! Very impressive.