I like either an all tube front end which is at least amp and pre amp for a tube system, but it will all be up to money and maintenance cost, the more tubes in the chain , the more up keep on the entire system. The one thing i can say is that most tube phono stages and tube tuners require a lot more care to keep quiet and aligned than there solid state counterparts. A tube phono stage can also be a little noisy on high efficiency speakers, especially when run in a balanced configuration.
