Marakanetz has it right.
Usually the easiest way is to use the same brand, but that may not necessarily be what you'll musically like the best. Did that make sense? Heheh.
Components within a certain brand shouldn't have impedance matching problems, but when mixing different brands careful selection is necessary. Case in point. I auditioned a friend's Pass Aleph 3 for a month and loved its sound. Fabulous on guitars and great layering front to back! But its low 23Kohm input impedance wasn't a good match for my system, which resulted in big loss of dynamics even with the volume cranked way up. In the end, even with the great sound I couldn't consider owning it with my current system.
What Marakantz has detailed is a good guideline for matching any preamp to an amp, but it becomes even trickier when throwing a passive preamp into the mix. Then you have to consider the output impedance and output voltage of your source components along with the amp's input impedance.
Usually the easiest way is to use the same brand, but that may not necessarily be what you'll musically like the best. Did that make sense? Heheh.
Components within a certain brand shouldn't have impedance matching problems, but when mixing different brands careful selection is necessary. Case in point. I auditioned a friend's Pass Aleph 3 for a month and loved its sound. Fabulous on guitars and great layering front to back! But its low 23Kohm input impedance wasn't a good match for my system, which resulted in big loss of dynamics even with the volume cranked way up. In the end, even with the great sound I couldn't consider owning it with my current system.
What Marakantz has detailed is a good guideline for matching any preamp to an amp, but it becomes even trickier when throwing a passive preamp into the mix. Then you have to consider the output impedance and output voltage of your source components along with the amp's input impedance.