Synergy

Bingo!  

I upgraded the tubes on my Herron Phono pre and was happy with the replacements. However, I also replaced the stock tubes on my Herron VTSP-360 with Bugle Boys; those were too hot/harsh sounding so I put the original tubes back. Keith Herron knew what he was doing! 

Op if the system is not synergize, you won’t get good sound and musicality. I learn many years ago even your gear are not that expensive as long as they synergize , you will be able to enjoy music. Two months ago I decided to run my viva integrated tube 22 w after 4 yrs to save my 300B tubes concern about expensive tubes during pandemic and Russia and Ukraine conflict. So just to warm it up , I used my Klipsh 600m monitor , $150 speaker cables , aq cobra ic, and $49 Pangea pc for my viva. Two days later I sat down and to my surprise, Iam getting musicality I have never experienced , I admit my Borensen has better sound quality. For now the Klipsh are sounding so musical. I believe it was a perfect match with viva and cables and components.Lesson I learned from this hobby , matching is the key especially amp and speakers.

Thank you for sharing. Really interesting. 

When a system is balanced on a knife edge... it doesn't take much to push it one way or another. 

I think by the very nature of what we are trying to do lends itself to this situation. My objective has been to recreate the real natural sound of music. I owned great components that do exactly that. But I struggled with the power cord for a year. One of the important things for me is to balance the prominence of the detail with the real thing. You can hear this in the ambience of a symphony hall before the music starts playing or with a minimal of instruments. I found several power cords on my amp would slightly accentuate the warmth and the ambiance would withdraw too much... and some that would overemphasis it. Eventually I found the perfect one... interestedly several others found the same power cord for the same equipment. 

Haven’t tried Rays tubes yet.  From your experiences, would you recommend trying in my preamp (12au7’s) and or amps (6922’s)?

sorry, I have no experience to answer that