I digress, but good to know Ken that I am not the only one to believe that solid state pre with valve power is a better combination than the other way around. The High End took a wrong turn when it went the way of "difficult to drive" speakers, demanding "big brute" power amps that never sound musical (unless you spend mega-bucks). And then to fix this people have used a band-aid approach by employing warm and lush tube preamps. Fortunately the High End has made the U-turn and we are getting speakers that are easier to drive.
Need SS preamp that sounds like tube .
I love the tube sound, but I don't necessarily want the tubes. I currently run a CJ PV12. Does anyone have any ideas? My main problem is that auditioning is limited in my area. I am pretty confident that the SS CJ stuff will sound tube-like. But I don't even think there is a dealer in my area. Some needed information: run a Bryston 4B-ST for power, Meridian 508.24 for CD, some PMC FB-1 monitors for speakers, silver Audioquest cable all around. I would like to keep the damage under 5K. As for auditions in my area, I can probably find Bryston, Audio Research, Aragon, Meridian. Oh, I'm sure these stores are authorized dealers for a lot of stuff, but they don't carry some of the pricy brands in stock or as demo. Help would be appreciated.