Tube pre-amp with SS Amp or SS pre-amp and tube amp

Escott1377 · « **Reply #20 on:** 23 Oct 2021, 02:29 am »

My pre amp that I am using is the latest offering from Musical Paradise. The options are essentially limitless with tubes and capacitors. The combo that I settled on is a trio of JJ6922’s with Jentzan Superior caps. All in for less than 1k. The cables that I use throughout my system are World’s Best Cables from Amazon. They are shielded and high quality. I don’t want to open the can of worms on power cables, but I build my own for less than $100.

The pre I mentioned has replaced another component on a higher scale and I bought his DAC as well.

As others have mentioned, feel free to reach via a PM on a power cord discussion.

Good luck and have fun!

jobiwon · « **Reply #21 on:** 4 Nov 2021, 03:22 pm »

I ran tubed pre and class D amp for several years, had nice punch without being overly bright and everything ran nice a cool. I just switched over to class A/B power to give it a try and so far its been good. Since this particular amp does not appear to produce to much heat I may be with this setup for some time.

knotscott · « **Reply #22 on:** 4 Nov 2021, 04:27 pm »

If you're going to mix tube and SS, I think the common preferred scenario is tube pre with SS amp. Some folks think of tubes are being a bit smoother or rolled off in the treble, which can be the case, or may not be the case, but there tends to be that perception.... it depends a lot on the particular circuit and the tube selection. However, if you lean toward tube for the benefit of midrange and treble clarity and resolution that lets you hear through to the venue, I think you risk losing some of that benefit by not going with a tube amp to complete the amplification chain. The rest of the system will play a big factor in what gets revealed, and what mates well together. One of the virtues of using tubes is tube rolling to tailor the sound exactly to your liking.

If you're looking for bass kick or control from an SS amp, a powered sub is a nice option. I use one just to augment the bottom octave.

saberger1 · « **Reply #23 on:** 18 Nov 2021, 10:32 pm »

McIntosh C11 tube pre with a Marantz 1060's amp.

The only thing that you want to be aware of is amp's input impedance should be at least 10 times greater then the preamps output impedance. This is a very general rule of thumb, of course. Some say higher is better, others will say it doesn't make that much of a difference.