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You need to BELIEVE more that the tubes sound better.
quick comment. you know that an Audio Video Receiver is both a pre-amp and amp. so connecting another preamp in front of the Bluray is not a good idea. Which AVR is it? can you only use the amp section of the AVR?OR did you mean Tube DAC?
Good one!What low said.I sort of did the opposite once. I had a hybrid integrated amp which had tube input and SS power output. I connected its preamp outputs to a well reviewed hybrid power amp, expecting to gain some tube-goodness from the tube part of the hybrid power amp. Nope! As a matter of fact, the big beefy hybrid power amp, which cost more than double the integrated, with more than double the power of the integrated, made the sound worse, with no tube-goodness added at all. Turns out that the integrated, although it had preamp outputs, did not play well at all in this configuration. I ended up keeping the hybrid power amp (I needed the extra power) and replacing the integrated with a tubed preamp. Not only cured the worsened sound, but improved upon the integrated-alone configuration and added the more tube-like sound I was pursuing.Point being, that just because you can connect the wires bewteen equipment, doesn't mean the sound will be optimal.
I wanted to hear the "tube" sound myself more than a few years ago. I opted for a SS amp and a Tube preamp. I did not hear much of a difference. Many here at AC stated that I would need an integrated tube amp (one that has a tube preamp and tube amp section) or I would need a tube amp and tube preamp to hear what tubes sound like. Well I bought a tube integrated amp and I DID hear the improvement in sound. I would not say it was really an improvement, as it was more a warmth to the sound. To me tubes sound more like live music, particularly music played through amps.But to me, Jazz sounds very cool...... just really more real.
It sounds like you are not using the tube preamp to go directly to the amp section. It sounds like you have only added a tube preamp just to convey the source signal to your AVR input. Your AVR is still driving the amp section. You have not added a tube preamp at all. You need to figure out a way to get your source signal to the tube preamp and let tube preamp drive the amps that powers your LR speakers. I don't know if you have a bypass feature on your AVR that will allow this. You will need to connect the tube preamp output directly to your AVR power amp section. If you can't do that, you will need a separate stereo power amp fed by your tube preamp to run the LR speaker. As it is, your tube preamp is not using it's output section to drive amps that power the LR speakers.
There's no question that the system setup is poor. It sounds like what you really want is a tube "buffer" stage, which has been made by a number of manufacturers over the years, I'm not sure about anyone currently; check the Music Direct web site, maybe Audio Advisor also.If you really want to use your current tube preamp you should get a basic (not integrated) power amp to go with it and bypass the AVR altogether.
...STILL NOT CLEARWhich Tube Pre-amp are you using that has 6.1 inputs? are you using the tube pream for TV/MOVIES, etc or just 2-channel music?I have had a tube preamp with a second amp connected to my Denon 4306 AVR ( only for 2 channel music - see diagram here , but your description of your cabling between the source BR/DVR to preamp AND preamp to AVR is not clear,sounds like a lot of cables.
So your tube preamp is being plugged into multichannel input of the AVR but that does not mean the signal would bypass all AVR internal processing unless you can confirm it with your AVR manufacture (or it said somewhere in the manual). If your speaker setting or EQ is still in effect then chance are your AVR has more influence to the quality of the sound. In your case, I would suggest you better off with tube buffer. Just my 2 cts.
