They've always been a bit of a mystery to me but with this being my 'Stereo' upgrade year, I'd like to entertain one - or two including a phono stage, if necessary.
It will have to balance out with my CM7s and a decent turntable when I make my mind up. I'd really like the vinyl to sound nice.

I also wonder if my pockets are deep enough.

Anybody out there with any experience or preference ?

You typically lose some of the low-end clout with a valve amp, but what you gain elsewhere can be so good that you just don't care. Not all valve amps sound the same - far from it. Always audition first. The biggest problem with many of the valve amps coming out of China these days is the quality of the output transformers. They can prevent the speaker from being driven nicely. Shanling are no such brand, which is why they are so popular around the world.
But there are plenty of UK and US models to choose from. Even World Audio offer some examples are really good prices. You can save even more if you are confident enough to assemble on yourself.

But sonically, they can do things solid state amps can't even dream of. With vinyl it's well worth investigating. With CD too of course, but it's worth having a really nice CD player to start with. Because vinyl is a much higher resolution format than CD, there's more to enjoy.

There are some very good SS amps out there, but the systems I've heard which have moved me most have almost all have valve amplifiers at their heart (and turntables at the source point).

I'm going to have a look around and see what I can find. Do you put a tube phone stage before a tube amp or are kept for solid state types ?

If I can buy a kit that just needs putting together and is tunable with different tubes etc. that sound right up my street. If it's drilling PCBs and making enclosures I'll probably pass.

Lots more to learn and look at...

You're a gentleman and a scholar.