preamp for canary 330 mono blocks

Passives are some folks taste but right now for a bang for buck pre I'd say the Modwright 9 used or maybe better Dodd Battery power.Real no frills but off power the grid.Friend has one and loves it.If you want old school tried and tested an Audible Illusions Modulus 3A.Think tubes in pre section can sound good at reasonable prices though if budget was higher lot's of SS designs come in.But you have some pretty high end valve amps so maybe SS design.Haven't heard passives that have the bass or dynamics an active pre has.But for those amps I (and I am sure you) wish you had an 5 times budget to open it up to CAT,Lamm etc and other top end pre's.
Chazz
Chazz

The Canary amps have high input sensitivity and voltage gain making them an excellent match for passive line stages. I have the CA-160 monoblocks and am using a Sonic Euphoria PLC with great results.

Shakey

I am using a Placette PLS with my CA330s and it works fine. I have all the bass extension and dynamics that anyone could ever want. I have Coincident Total Victory speakers that go to 26 Hz so I can really experience the bass. I am using Tara Labs low capacitance interconnects between the Placette and the Canary amps and that makes a difference. Without the low capacitance cables frequency response could suffer with the passive stage.

the Coincedents are fine speakers
Check cam for some more info