I know you’re busy but I figured out my dream stereo setup, and it’s only about $750 away, cables included.

So this is my current system:

Sources
CD: Cambridge AXC35 Cambridge Audio AXC35 (note: no matter how much you want to rationalize it, you really don’t need more than a ~$200 Japanese consumer one. My CD player is the least-used component in my system, after phono stuff, and I buy CDs on a regular basis)
AUX: Creative Labs Sound Blaster AE-9, from My PC ( Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3/current)

Preamp/tuner/DAC: Emotiva BasX PT1
Power amplifier: Toshiba SC-335 (Toshiba isn’t as foreign to hi-fi as I thought – just as Sony and Philips made SPDIF, TOShiba was responsible for the TOSLINK digital optical standard)

Speakers: Klipsch RP-500M II
Headphones: Sennheiser HD600

…

That’s all very good. I also have a pair of floorstanders in the closet that my mom’s old boyfriend made for me with Audio Nirvana Super 8 full-range drivers. TBH I’ve never been able to properly evaluate these because at any load they overwhelm any room I’ve been able to have them in. Maybe if I’m a homeowner one day I’ll finally be able to unleash these bad boys. A man can dream. But at low levels they’re very bright, detailed, and powered. A few days ago I hit upon the idea of wiring them in as Speaker B in my new amplifier, placing them in on either side in front of my armchair, which is now just a chair across the room from the speakers that I like to listen from, but which isn’t the focus of its own speakers. But then I had a better idea.

What if I took some female-to-male Y-splitters and split the sound card output to go to two separate systems, each powering a different set of speakers?

For 40wpc of clean, muscular solid-state energy – and those VU meters really are a feaat for the eyes, like watching tubes glow – the Emotiva powers the Toshiba powers the Klipsches on either side of my computer monitor – basically, my current system. I hadn’t considered it, but I could even keep the CD player.

For 8wpc (or the like) of pure class A, I could buy something likethis SET tube integrated amp piece of Chi-Fi. Back in the day some of the best equipment I ever bought was from Chinese companies that were literally one guy who designed great amps and had a factory do the actual assembly for rock-bottom prices, like Monarchy Audio and Antique Sound Lab, whose components I’ve junked only in the last couple of years. The one guy in both of those companies has since retired, and this stuff looks to be the spiritual successor. If not, it’s only $350.

CD: my PC
AUX: I was looking for a separate tuner so I could choose from a greater range of preamps and integrateds when I came across this curiosity: the Jolida JD402 tube tuner, with a 12AT7 and a 12AX7 section, that’s a lot of gain. Those are amplifier tubes, not radio tubes, so the actual tuner part is transistor, which might be why you so seldom see tube-amplified tuners even as integral to the development of the technology as radio was.

Speakers: Audio Nirvana 10” full-range (x1) in floorstander cabinets, something like 96dB sensitive so no problem for the eight-watt amplifier of sweet pure triode midrange, in front of my armchair across the room from the two stereo systems. I used to play with couplers, Y-splitters, boxes, all that stuff. I used to go without a preamp by connecting my CD player and phono stage to an in-line A/B switch box and connected the output to line-in on a sound card, set it so you could monitor it while also using computer audio, then used the digital out to go to a DAC, with the output attached directly to the power amp. I used the PC volume control directly as the volume control for the system, with not a knob or potentiometer in sight.