Add warmth / smoothness to my system recommendations

I will explore Bacch soundstage enhancement and crosstalk cancellation. They have put forth a trial version for download. I went through the steps but coinccidently caught a virus. Not sure if related to that particular site. But it never occurs to me Bacch will help on timbre tuning.
IME (to my ears) the Bacch applies some very gentle PEQ (it has several target curves to select from), time and phase alignment, and crosstalk (etc.) processing.
 
ok hear me out.

Try the Fosi gr70 all tube headphone amp as a preamp. its $200 . Its surprisingly the best thing Fosi ever made. Its tuned very warm but no loss in detail or top end, just the lower register extends deep and wide, full. . I couldn't care less about Fosi and Aiyima , but the gr70 is something worth checking out....surprisingly fantastic as a preamp. Not even kidding. its that good.
 
ok hear me out.

Try the Fosi gr70 all tube headphone amp as a preamp. its $200 . Its surprisingly the best thing Fosi ever made. Its tuned very warm but no loss in detail or top end, just the lower register extends deep and wide, full. . I couldn't care less about Fosi and Aiyima , but the gr70 is something worth checking out....surprisingly fantastic as a preamp. Not even kidding. its that good.
Here is what I have researched: Fosi seems to have QC issue. A lot of complaint about it due to bad tubes although the sound might be good (as you have described.) One user feedback in particular "they’re dealing with “vintage” tubes which aren’t being matched across the channels / across the tubes and the tubes are old / not in ideal shape so the failure rate is higher." It seems an OTL that requires all tubes to do the jobs that a xformer used to handle, which may not like demanding speaker like 4 ohm rated S400 II I owned. What is your experience?
 
I am all for spending other peoples money. But it were my system I’d try towing them straight, or toeing them out…
before perving over new equipment to buy..
 
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And… did that quell some of the brightness?
Not really. As I said, I’m still technically right on the –3 dB off-axis edge line. The Lintons have a –3 dB point at 30 degrees off-axis, and with 10 degrees of toe-in I was effectively at 20 degrees off-axis, so the result didn’t surprise me. I don’t want to increase the speaker separation because I would start losing image focus.

Here’s the thing: all three components in my chain are neutral, or even slightly on the brighter side of neutral. That’s why I’ve been exploring the idea of adding a tube preamp to synthesize some warmth. Your thoughts?
 
What are the most effective ways to add warmth or smoothness to the system? You could rank them as well and please provide examples of actual components you are using. Thank you.

1) Hybrid SS with tube buffer

2) Hybrid tube preamp stage with SS output stage

3) Tube preamp + SS amp

4) Tube amp

5) Class A SS amp with zero/low feedback

6) High bias Class A/AB with zero/low feedback
Tubes for sure but it's really about the mix. I have a higher power SET amp with a more neutral tube preamp and the warmth is right where it shoule be. But then if you have an analog front end, there's that preamp and stepup and cartridge to worry about. You really just need to experiment. We all hear differently and your warmth might be someone else's neutral.
 
Here is what I have researched: Fosi seems to have QC issue. A lot of complaint about it due to bad tubes although the sound might be good (as you have described.) One user feedback in particular "they’re dealing with “vintage” tubes which aren’t being matched across the channels / across the tubes and the tubes are old / not in ideal shape so the failure rate is higher." It seems an OTL that requires all tubes to do the jobs that a xformer used to handle, which may not like demanding speaker like 4 ohm rated S400 II I owned. What is your experience?
for $200 IDK how they make some of these things, The GR70 I have is fantastic. it shoots way above its price way way above...I'm sure there probably is QC issues and maybe some of the tubes don't match, its $200, new tubes for this are cheap....its built better than a lot of gear twice its price....the build on the GR70 is really solid. ..

I'm gonna try upping the power supply because it seems like a obvious weak spot with the little wall wort...I picked out one on Amazon that should be a good upgrade and will order it today. I've only had it a few months.

but its $200 , for me the stock tubes it came ith sound great, but I'll look more into upgrades, I checked before but I'm happy with the sound.

its not an overly powerful unit....my Sennheiser HD660s and Koss proaa4 are about as hard to drive as you'll want to put on it...as a preamp maybe it only has 8v gain tops ,,,,,but its sounds rich, its lush. it sounds ZERO like all other fosi and aiyima products.

It amazed me hooked recently to my Laserdisc player playing Yusuko Agawa with Ron Carter quartet, absolutely sublime what it did with Ron Carters bass.
 
I just turned up the thermostat a couple degrees, nice and toasty now ! ......:p
 

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