tube pre amp plus solid state power amps?


HI there,
My systems have always been tube system all the way through phon stage + pre amp+ power amps, but recently I got a little tire of maintenance of these amps and thought about changing power amps to solid state. I listen classical music. I always love tube amp particular from my LP collection. I am worrying about using solid state power amp will loose the texture of the sound that I like. However, I have done a little reading, some one said high end power amps will keep that sound, especially something like McCormack DNA-500 and Claytons amps. There are some writing confuse me, such as: β€œit is not important to use tube phon stage, solid state will be better.” I even read the statement says: pre amp is the least important of the whole audio chain.”

Well, what I am thinking about is keep tube system for both my phon stage and pre amp, use solid state for power amps replace tube system. Does anyone can tell me this will be a good change, or I need either whole system on tubes or on solid state?

Thanks
suikang

Showing 4 responses by pubul57

That J2 is very, very tempting in the search for an SS amp that might serve the listening preference of those that prefer tubes, and I see it had a 100kohm input impedance. Nelson must have figured out that many folks wanting to use his amps might have tube preamps. Darn, I can feel the temptation coming on....
Suikang, I think your "worry" is well grounded, I simply could never find an SS amp that would be my full-time amp, and I tried. I own Merlins VSMs that work extremely well with tube amps, and I suspect with some speakers, the high current, high power SS amps may be preferable to tubes - some speakers seem to shine with SS amplification - they need it. But, if you are hooked on what tubes do, I just don't think you will get that from any SS amp, as Tvad says, from any brand of SS.
One the best SS amps I have heard, that also is VERY tube preamp friendly due to its 240kohm input imepedance is the First Watt (Pass) Aleph J, which is a further refinement of the Pass Aleph 3. It is only 30 Class A Watts, but if that is sufficient power and your speakers have a smooth impedance curve (a tube amp friendly speaker) than you can hardly do better in an SS amp with "tube" like qualities. With the right speakers, it might even perform as well as the Pass XA30.5.
25 watts. Should be could for most applications with 91-92db speakers with smooth, and highish impedance (good for OTLs, good for the J2)