suggest using the mc402 on the 4 ohm taps for the 803s - that is what I do and it sounds great - plenty of power - I am using a mcintosh ss preamp - compared to the mac tubes and the audio research tubes - the mc220 would be my choice for a tube preamp - it is kind of 'muddy' but not as much as the audio research I listened to and more than the mcintosh 2200 or 2300 - which to me just did not sound that much different than the SS. If you like the tube sound, might as well go with a preamp that really has the tube sound - to my ears the audio research was just too far in that direction. I would definitely demo the 220. Anyway I would not move off of the 402 - fabulous amp - my feel is if you want tubes in your system, go with them at the preamp - the 402 is not going to do anything other than amplify what is fed to it - if you feed it a tube sounding signal, you'll still get the tube sound - Cannot go wrong with the 803 in my estimation - the only other speakers that I found as a close second or maybe even better were the Dali Mk II 400's - those were nice - just could not make the move to a ribbon - the Genelec monitors were also nice - it just got to be too difficult to find a pair big enough without driving a couple of states away.
Still working on choosing a power amp
System: Rogue Audio Perseous Pre amp, Rogue Audio ST-90 Power amp, Krell SACD Standard, Project RM 10 TT, B&W 803s speakers, Staight wire cables. Have been researching options for a power amp. Thought about Rogue M-150 monoblocks and some others. Would there be a sound conflict if I use the Tube preamp w/ a solid state power amp? It seams there are more options for higher power amps that are SS. Therefore more headroom. So, what's the deal? Do you loose the tube sound?