I wanted to follow up to my previous comments now that I've had the Petit for a few weeks:
The Petit responds very well to tube rolling with the caveat that phono-grade tubes MUST be used. It is very sensitive to tube noise, so noise-graded tubes are essential. The stock tubes, which appear to be Slovakian JJ type 12AX7s, are very quiet, however I found them to be lacking depth and space. Out of several matched sets, new production Gold Lions were far and above the better sounding tube in my system. They had more depth, space, and female vocals were simply outstanding, goosebump territory. I'm currently using some new Tung Sols, and they are nice, but don't have that lifelike vocal midrange that the Gold Lions do. So, if you have a Petit, tube rolling can be of great benefit as long as you are using the best noise-graded tubes possible. I look forward to rolling some more exotic tubes in the coming months and will report back on those results.
In addition to rolling, I recently replaced the stock wall wart with a nice linear power supply (SBooster). The results were very subtle, but gave me the impression of a more organized soundstage (especially during complex passages) with slightly more depth. The noise floor was also slightly improved, but is still very dependent on the tubes being used. For me, this was also a worthwhile upgrade.
To sum things up, I probably would not have kept the Pettit had I not been able to roll the tubes and improve the power supply. Those two "upgrades" gave me the results I had hoped for and more, and make the Petit perform at the level I need for my system. The upgrades I did bring the Petit to $2,000, so that must be considered. My testing was done using MC carts: Hana SL, AT-ART9, and AT-OC9/III. 65db gain seems to be the sweet spot for all these carts.
The Petit responds very well to tube rolling with the caveat that phono-grade tubes MUST be used. It is very sensitive to tube noise, so noise-graded tubes are essential. The stock tubes, which appear to be Slovakian JJ type 12AX7s, are very quiet, however I found them to be lacking depth and space. Out of several matched sets, new production Gold Lions were far and above the better sounding tube in my system. They had more depth, space, and female vocals were simply outstanding, goosebump territory. I'm currently using some new Tung Sols, and they are nice, but don't have that lifelike vocal midrange that the Gold Lions do. So, if you have a Petit, tube rolling can be of great benefit as long as you are using the best noise-graded tubes possible. I look forward to rolling some more exotic tubes in the coming months and will report back on those results.
In addition to rolling, I recently replaced the stock wall wart with a nice linear power supply (SBooster). The results were very subtle, but gave me the impression of a more organized soundstage (especially during complex passages) with slightly more depth. The noise floor was also slightly improved, but is still very dependent on the tubes being used. For me, this was also a worthwhile upgrade.
To sum things up, I probably would not have kept the Pettit had I not been able to roll the tubes and improve the power supply. Those two "upgrades" gave me the results I had hoped for and more, and make the Petit perform at the level I need for my system. The upgrades I did bring the Petit to $2,000, so that must be considered. My testing was done using MC carts: Hana SL, AT-ART9, and AT-OC9/III. 65db gain seems to be the sweet spot for all these carts.