I would suggest if you want to experience valve, you first need to understand that not all valve gear is the same.
IF they are truly transparent SS vs Valves you won't be able to tell the difference if they are voiced with the same materials.
I'm talking about a preamp. OTOH if the preamp has a certain flavor like the older Macs, Fisher, Marantz, Heath, Pass (not labs)
HK and even some Sansui the sound compared to newer opamp based valve gear is not transparent at ALL.
As I mentioned before, older Mac gear that has hexfreds/sokeys added and close attention paid to resistors and caps is one
serious preamp.
After a good build the THD drops from .1 to .01. That difference is weather you HEAR the hiss/distortion/BS vs NOT hearing it. The
REAL sound is the 2nd/3rd harmonics that are toyed with at the preamp, NOT the power amp. It's simple the power amps amplify
the signal they get. Ampzilla was a good example of being able to reproduce what it received with ZERO feedback.
They were as transparent as the signal they received. They could also blister my ears when hooked to most SS preamps. It was a
Love relationship if you like a valve preamp. It was a hate relationship when it came to most SS preamps driving SST Ampzillas.
I will say this if you want to experience a GOOD valve power amps for reasonable money look at QS or Cary. If you want/like the
Mac sound, you have to use Mac. VTL makes Mac look like bargain basement gear. Talk about expensive. The owner is the problem
there "Bea". The owner from HELL. "Send it in" was alway the response.
The answer was always "replaced the valves." 16-48 EI KT90s are 1,600.00 to 8K now. That's more than my first TWO houses on the same
lot in 1975. I paid 5,500.00 for the pair.
The fact is you will NEVER hear what valve gear sounds like until you use it or listen to it. Add all the CRAP you want, it will never
sound like a valve amp sounds. SS gear with distortion amplifiers or tube buffers are fun, BUT not the real thing. Sorry!
Maybe you have a 90 year old uncle with some valve gear to listen to. He's not.
MC240 can have a very special sound too. Top 5 for me... I'm actually listening to one right now with a tricked out MX110z and RB Infinity RS4bs.
Vinyl of course.
Regards.