Beginner looking for guidance into tube sound.

Atmasphere

I have recordings with bass drums that don’t just shake walls, but knock things off the bookshelves.

This sadly is not one of them.

I don't thing any recording of Canto would. The score does not have any section where the bass drum is a triple forte (when I made that recording the assistant conductor was sitting right beside me so I got a briefing on the entire thing). The drum is used in quieter passages- that is when you know if your system is capable of the nuance of being able to play really deep bass at low levels and get it right. 

Johnfritter - did you get a tube pre?  Update please

I apologize. Yes an update is due.
On May 26th I believe. I contacted Aric at Aric Audio with questions about the used Unlimited listed here. After talking with him I decided that would be a great place to start. The unit sold by the time I got back to the seller. A week or so goes by and I get an email from Aric. He had taken one of his unlimited II's in on trade and made me an offer. This started a long chain of emails as I had lots of questions. He was right there with answers to every one of them, silly or not! I cant say enough about His customer service, absolutely outstanding. There was no doubt in my mind I am buying from this guy. I just had to decide what it was going to be. By the time I was all done I had settled on his Transcend 6SN7 Line Stage. Per my request  and his guidance (he never once pushed an upgrade or tried to upsell me) we chose to upgrade output caps to Miflex copper foil paper in oil. A resistor based output gain to replace the potentiometer. as well as a much much larger transformer and steel cover.
After two weeks and a week and a half of Fedex blunders July 9th it finally showed up! Its loaded with a NOS RCA 5U4G rectifier, a pair of NOS RCA OD3 regulator's and a pair of NOS Sylvania VT231's.
What adding this unit did was just short of amazing. It actually gave definition to a lot of the terms I see used so often that I thought  understood. I now hear so much more of what I was hearing that if I take it out everything sounds "flat" for the best way to put it. Everything sounds so rich and full yet very separated as far as instruments and vocals. I can actually hear (or think I do) the drumsticks strike the skins and the tick of them contacting the cymbal's. I swear you can tell how thick of a pick is being used on a guitar. I know it may sound a little overboard but it honestly is that good to me. There is no getting tired of it either. I've listened to it for a minimum of 3-4 hours a night (weeknights) and much longer on the weekends since I set it up July 9th. 
Well I had better get back to work for the day so I can get home and enjoy.

Thanks to everyone for all the input.
J.F.

Ha, well done, for a beginner you stepped right up to some very fine gear and well selected NOS tubes!  Enjoy, and welcome to the tube world. Personally I was expecting more of a romantic, warm, mid-range type of sound and was shocked by the level of fine detail and holographic presentation you get from tubes, it wasn't at all what I was expecting. Even friends family members easily noticed the difference.   

Congrats on your purchase. You got me thinking about talking to Aric about upgrading my Special (precursor to the Transcend). Mine is about 3 1/2 years old. Thinking about the resistor gain approach.