TUBE or SS?

david99, thanks for your comments. i can *assure* you it's the rogue 99 preamp that made the bass go away - it was all there before, & the preamp is the only thing that's changed. since my last post, however, several folks have said that this will improve w/burn-in - we'll see. i hope so, cuz the rest of the stuff this pre does is *very* nice...

I too have had good results by using a tubed pre and a solid state amp,if used with the right cables! The S.F.Line2 sounds very good with my Krell KSA-150 With the right cables between them but can sound harsh with the wrong ones in there. As someone mentioned earlier the speakers may dictate what combo you may wish to go for.....If you have a speaker that you already like look at it's requirements and work backwards from there.

I too have had good results by using a tubed pre and a solid state amp,if used with the right cables! The S.F.Line2 sounds very good with my Krell KSA-150 With the right cables between them but can sound harsh with the wrong ones in there. As someone mentioned earlier the speakers may dictate what combo you may wish to go for.....If you have a speaker that you already like look at it's requirements and work backwards from there.

I've been both ways. Tube on pre, tubes on amp, both and none. My favorite is tube pre and ss for exactly the same reasons everyone has mentioned above. When you get too many tubes in the system, however I find a loss of detail and a too laid back sound. Besides then when one tube goes bad you have to sort through ten or fifteen tubes to find I've not heard some of these new "super" tube amps like the problem tube. And it get's expensive to boot. However, Manley or Wolcott. So my advice would be if you are going on less than 5K budget, keep it cheap all around and do tubes on the pre and ss on amp.

Sorry I guess when I submitted I garbled the post...sorry.