Tube Preamp with Solid State Amp?

By the way, my Schiit Freya/Had "Firebottle" SEP amp combo cost less than 2 grand (the Had amp was used for a few months), and is an astonishingly coherent and musical system that for my tastes provides what SS gear, try as they may, does not. 2 REL subs for low bass shy Heresy IIIs make it thunder, although I'm tied to efficient speakers (in a good way).

Dennis Had has his little hand made SEP amps back up on Ebay for 1700 bucks or so...now with a level pot for some reason, and my experience with an earlier version has been great as it's simply the best amp I've owned over many decades of tube and SS stuff...with efficient speakers (I use Klipsch Heresy IIIs) it's a killer amp, plus only 4 tubes to mess with.

The Schiit Freya preamp (now the Freya +) allows instant switching between tubes and 2 other modes so you can see what's what regarding the tubes, and the tubes sound snappier, more detailed, and provide what I take as a more accurate presentation...my older version is very quiet and amazingly well made and sounds fabulous. The lack of "crossover" distortion and transistor harshness is gone of course from my single ended pentode power amp, the result being a more accurate musical presentation. Nothing "euphonic" or "smoothing", simply detailed down to about 58hz where my 2 under stressed SS RELs take over.