Suggestions for a tube pre and power amp

@lals great initial list and some great recommendations in this thread.  I’ve had Coda Amps and Pre’s in my system, have paired Tube Preamps with SS Class A amps.  Coda makes great gear, Doug is accessible, call him and he’ll get you on the “right” amp for your gear.  Someone mentioned Coda not being Class A, not accurate, they make various amps, some are 100 % class A and others are biased to produce a certain percentage of class A.  On LTA, they also make great products, the pre that has been recommended can be fully balanced, you can talk with them as well.  I’d call Doug at Coda, ask what Amp or Amps he would reclined and what Tube Pre’s he thinks would pair well.  Watts alone don’t tell the full story on how well an amp can control and drive speakers, I have speakers that are rated efficiently but dip on impedance and like current, damping factor that can really control them.  

@lals Your welcome for the advice!  You are wise to inquire about your potential future sound system, and seek out pairings from others who have already been through the 'travel adventure'.  At the end of the day, your ears and particular equipment matching will tell you when it just sounds right!  My speakers are Kef, Reference 3~2.  A 5 way driver system.  They run at 4 ohms and are 90dB efficient.  If i turn the pre-amp (C-J Premier 17ls) past half (50) the windows in the house are rattling!  So a quality all tube system has no issue driving speakers built to those design parameters.  Good luck on your journey!  Let us know in the future how you made out!!

@mm1tt77 

Thank you very much.  I will call Doug  and will check with him. May I know what preamp you are using with Coda. It will be great if I can get a list of matching tube preamp with Coda amps.

I have noticed Coda amps have less input impedance for balanced compared to single ended. Thank you.

@quincy Thank you very much for sharing your real life experience with CJ gears. My speakers are 91dB sensitivity but impedance dip to around 3 ohms. I assume compared to Kef Reference3 speakers Revels will be easy to drive. Sure will let every one know once I make the decision.

@lals I currently landed back on matching a SS pre and amp combo, both Krell, Illusions ii pre and 300xd Amp.  Along the way I paired a Coda # 8 with the Coda CB Pre, Coda 07x pre, Zesto Leto Pre (Tube) Primaluna Evo (Tube) and PS Audio BHK Pre (Tube Hybrid).  I also paired these pre’s with the Krell 300xd amp.  I found it way more difficult to match the pre with the rest of my gear, my speakers are Alta Audio, sensitive but 4 ohm, they’ve current and have a transmission line design that shines with amplification that has an iron grip on the speakers drivers.  The gear outside the speakers is designed to function best balanced, that also raises the gain, signal.  Overall, tricky combo to manage.  All that said, I think for most, if you like some tube flavor, sound, a Tube Pre paired with a SS Amp is the best combo for most systems.  For my set up though, I had a really hard time finding balanced Tube Pre’s that paired well from a voltage / gain standpoint with my SS amp. Balanced Tube Pre’s are out there but unbalanced are far more common.  The Tube Pre I had the most success with was the PS Audio BHK, It brought that tube magic, you could tube roll and really get the flavor of the different tubes.  I think partly though because of the gain and my sensitive speakers, it could be noisy.  So, that’s why I’d lean into the opportunity to talk with the various brand reps about the gear you have, what matches best in their opinion, and I would research your speakers, find out what others have found to be the best pre/amp combo.  I can tell you from experience, it’s not just the specs, what you see on paper, my speakers on the surface don’t appear to be a great match for the amp I have but at Audio Shows they got paired together because they brought the best out of each other, I was able to talk with the founder, owner, designer of the speakers who was able to highlight why.  From what I’ve found on my journey so far is synergy is key, you want to find real world examples of synergy, not just what appears to be a match on paper and if the brands you are interested in offer access to the designers of the gear, invaluable to talk with them.