Solid State or Tube Preamp mated with Tube Monos?

Don't mess with success. If you get a chance to put some other top line pre-amps in your system for a few days, do, but only for information. If something blows you away, then buy it, but otherwise just stay informed.

SS vs. tubes makes no sense to me. In their top incarnations either is excellent.

A great SS pre-amp to try is the Jeff Rowland Research Group Capri. Look at Guidocorona's reviews and comments here on A'gon. It unseated his ARC Ref3 and another replaced a Conrad Johnson Premier. In my house, the Continuum integrated unseated my Conrad Johnson CA200. So, you see, despite it's low cost ($2700 without phono-stage and $3055 with) it's in the top echelon.

Dave

Thanks for the informative responses gentlemen. It's a privilege to be amongst a community of human beings in touch with not merely cutting-edge audio engineering but more significantly with cutting-edge science.

"Moreover, the sound of the pieces together seem to approach perfection to a closer degree than other tube and solid state setups we've had."

That's what it's all about. Be careful when you are this close. However, if you are thinking of a change, are you wanting a sharper sound or a softer sound?

At this point, I prefer to err on the side of caution and not mess with success, i.e. "Be careful when you are this close."

Like a gentleman advised me about putting on too many layers of spar varnish, "Two or three layers is fine; but, when you start putting on more than that, things are gonna start moving on you (likely for the worse) . . .."