Thanks Elizabeth, I thought that could be the case so I purchased a van Evers clean line. It did wonders for a quieter background but the IFi still sounded thin with strings above mf. I’m pretty much glued to my records at the moment as the Allnic 1201 is really very different than the IFi. There’s much more bass and heft to the music without losing any detail. Piano sounds amazing. Never thought my old stereo could sound this good. I was a bit nervous as my Hana Sl calls for greater than 400 ohms load and the Allnic does not offer even this much impedance ( coming from IFi this felt like a shortcoming) no matter, it sounds great. Just to see (hear ?) we reinstalled the IFi: the music is less spatial, less tonally convincing. I’m also shocked at that slam this little tube amp can muster !
it seems my speakers are doing things they haven’t done before - I guess they should, new, the 1201 is 3k, the IFi is $500....