warmer pre-amp for Adcom GFA 555II

I have an unlisted system in a spare bedroom now that mirors your s. I have a pair of 555 11 s running Avalon Arcus and am using the ls3b to good results. The 555 11 is a beefy abiet harsh amp . Reliable however. Does nicely for dynamic theatre applications but I would not use it for building a dedicated 2 channel system . But thats just me . At least not for the long term. The ls3 was a massive improvement from the Adcom preamp I had it paired with earlier this week. Bigkids hit it nicely in that the source component is going to be critical. An inexpensive cd or dvd on those amps can be messy . Jab s use of a VAC sounds superb and from there you will end up selling the Adcoms and be on to something special. I had 7 of the Adcoms running at 600 w mono on a 7 channel theatre at one time and found it to be thrilling and bulletproof. They were on 7 bp 2000 s then Polk SRT s . On the Def Tech , it was open , atmospheric and dynamic but imaging was for crap and therefore had no real audiophile merit. The Def Techs are on the bright side and so is the Adcoms so you have a challenge on your hands. Sandy makes great speakers for theatre however so it will be fun taming the room and finding an appropriate source component. The old CAL 2500 dvd worked great for me in that system by the way as the digital output was nearly as transparent as the analog. Be aware that that unit has bugs and I am having real trouble getting mine serviced correctly as we speak. Good luck.