I've listened to my last two recordings with the UA5 a bunch of times, and thought I'd offer up a few thoughts vs. generalities.. I am preliminarily very impressed with the wmod UA5... It does, indeed, have a slight "warm" coloration to the sound. I wouldn't go so far as to call it "tubey," but it's certainly on the warm side of solid state.
If you guys are familiar with Steve McCormack's audio gear, you know the sound of the UA5. I purchased both a McCormack RLD-1 preamp and DNA-125 amp to replace my tube integrated awhile back... And the reason I picked McCormack after home auditioning WAY too many pieces of gear was it gave me the soundstaging depth and timbral beauty of the tubes, with the slam, detail, and top end extension of the solid state pieces. Pretty much took the good of both (in my price range), while discarding much of the bad.
My preliminary judgement of the UA5 is along similar lines. It's warm, yes, but as I said on the solid state side of warm... It's not fuzzy, huggy, tubey. Bass is taut and well controlled when it's presented with taut and well controlled bass
Mids show great beauty, and highs are sweet and plenty extended.
Well, I'm pretty happy with this purchase so far, it seems like a steal for $500
I'll have lots more to analyze in the weeks coming, more to post later...