I think you are getting good advise regarding final speaker selection. I believe your preamp might sound best from it's balanced outputs. I'm not sure how critical this is in the big picture, but you might want to consider maximizing the sound of the units you already own and seem to be working around. You may find it challanging to find a tube amp that meets all your requirements and also has true balanced inputs. Good luck.
Tube amp for planar speakers and SS pre
I have wanted for some time to move to planar speakers - cannot get what I want from 3-way speakers on classical music. I own the pass labs x-1 pre which I intend to keep. From reading back posts, I can see the logic in mating a ss-pre with a tube amp. However, most tube amps sound loosey-goosey to me in the bass.
I suspect I am probably underexposed. So... What tube amps are likely to work well with my Pass Labs pre and planar speakers, specifically maggies or sound labs? Will I be able to get tight bass, or will there always be a trade-off here? I would love to have a better technical understanding of the differences between the way solid state and tubes provide head room.
I suspect I am probably underexposed. So... What tube amps are likely to work well with my Pass Labs pre and planar speakers, specifically maggies or sound labs? Will I be able to get tight bass, or will there always be a trade-off here? I would love to have a better technical understanding of the differences between the way solid state and tubes provide head room.