Ayre V3 owners. What preamp do you use?

I spoke with someone at Ayre, who owns one and uses a Conrad Johnson PV12 (I think that's the model), an unbalanced linestage.

Presently running with McCormack TLC-1 Deluxe. Nicely transparent esp. in passive mode. Auditioned a Golden Tube SEP2 which had a better stage & was rather euphonic too, but I didn't buy it as I found out that they've gone under (no warranty or support). I'm now considering trying out a B.A.T., which I suspect may matchup quite well considering it's tubed & balanced. Is anyone else using this setup?

I am using a Tact 2.0 RCS for room correction and pre-amp capabilities. The Ayre is on the top end of a bi-amped system with a Levinson 332 on the bottom driving Maggie 3.5Rs. Mmmmmm good!

Thanks All...What I'm wondering is if the early reviews that stated the V3 to be only a good amp as oppossed to outstanding amp when run single ended was before the upgrades that Ayre made. Many say you need to run this amp balanced to get the most out of it. I'm finding the M3A(which is single ended) and the Ayre to be a good match, one thing that concerned me was a possible impedence mis-match between the pre and amp. The input on the M3A is set at 47k olhms and the Ayre is at 10k olhms. Is this a large difference? From what I've been able to tell there is no frequency imbalance that I've noticed. I've heard that you could have an amplifers input changed. What difference would that make? Thanks-Gary

I've had the amp upgraded (owned an original), and it still sounds better balanced. If you want to use a single-ended preamp (I do with Bel Canto even though it has balanced out), get a good pair of RCA to balanced converters. That way you will get the best of both components (loss from converters is minimal is they are done right).