Tube Rolling - No Change in Sound

Well, trounce me if you want, but I still STRONGLY maintain that the sonic signature of any system is at least 85% determined by the amp and speakers. As for preamps, I think one thing you WILL get out of tube rolling is (maybe) a quieter/lower noise floor (depending on the tube you select.) This is certainly true for tubed phono preamps. But the amp is where I'd look to effect tonal changes through tube-rolling.

Of course if you have a solid state amp, you're going to get the detail and slam for which ss is well known. But if you don't like the sonics, you'll have to roll the whole amp!
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Sure sources (and preamps) affect sonics, but with them, it's basically "what you buy is what you hear" -- they are what they are. The reason the amp+speaker=primary system sonics is because:
A. Once a signal is created (by a source) the amp processes the signal (multiplies it by a huge factor) more radically than any other device (even including equalizers!) A line preamp (not a phono preamp) is really a signal switcher + a buffer stage; it selects a signal (source) and then optimizes it for driving an amplifier; but it doesn't really alter the signal that much; not compared to an amp!
B. The speaker (and the speaker/amp interface, AKA how much the amp likes the speaker it's driving ;-) is the other major factor that determines a system's sound character. Don't tell me about the room treatments, and the cables, and the temperature and the altitude ;-) they're all important. Nevertheless, you can do anything you want upstream, but horns, stats, cones, domes, ribbons, buttons and bows! each have their own unmistakable sonic character -- and you can't make one sound like any of the others (not by any legal means ;-)
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