Tube Phono Stage Help

With all due respect to Bottlehead, wouldn't you guys expect the Whest to be superior to the Seduction? The Bottlehead Eros might be a better alternative, I would think. And to the OP, what system is giving you a lean sound? You say you are trying out the Whest and you own a Spectron amp, but in your last sentence you say you have a Cary preamp and amplifier. Compared to those latter two, the Spectron would surely be lean sounding. Perhaps the dominant sonic signature, if you've switched from the Cary amp to the Spectron amp. Or maybe you have not yet received the Spectron. By all accounts, the Whest is a very good piece.

To sort this out, if you think the sound is "lean" with the Cary/Whest combo, the "problem" probably won't be cured by introduction of the Spectron, but I could be very wrong. I used to think based on listening experiences that Class D amps were by definition "lean", but recent reports suggest that maybe the latest circuits (which I have not heard) have been designed to sound more like tubes than do conventional solid state devices. Ergo you might be pleasantly surprised by the change when you introduce the Spectron. I would not make a move until you get the Spectron and have had a chance to live with it and the Whest in the same system.