SS Preamp with Tube Amp?


I have always been a SS audiophile: Plinius, McCormack, Pass amps and integrated's. I still have a few of them in several setups.

But recently I bought a Music Reference RM10 MKII, an EL84 35 wpc tube amp. I love it. Have it driving Spendor A6's. All cables Furutech.

My question is, can a SS preamp do the tube amp justice to maintain the tube amp's liquidity, sweetness, wonderful midrange, etc.

I was thinking about a Jeff Rowland Capri SS pre.

Wondered what others' experience has been with this question.

Thanks
Glenn
gsherwood53
Mapman, you understood I was talking about phono preamps right? With regular preamps, tube rolling generally doesn't seem to have much effect on sonics, compared to tube rolling in amps, so I tend to lean toward SS for those. Now of course if someone allowed me to audition a Nick Doshi, or perhaps the new CAT, or a Calypso, I might give in ;--)
As noted by others, there have been a lot of threads on this subject and you should research them.

Truly good sounding solid-state preamps, which is to say, the ones that do not sound "solid-state", tend to be very expensive, and I agree with the above poster that it is a lot easier to get a good sounding tube preamp at a given price point than solid-state. Most importantly, tube preamps layer space better than most solid-state preamps.

That said, the very best solid-state preamps layer space just as well as tube preamps. They are also quieter, and this to me is crucial - tube pre's obscure detail compared to the better solid-state preamps because of the greater noise levels generated by small-signal tubes. A preamp sends a signal that is amplified many times by the amplifier - if the signal received from the preamp at an amp's inputs is noisy to begin with, noise levels become quickly audible. In a high-resolution system, a solid-state preamp allows a listener to hear deeper, and with the best SS pre's, a lot deeper, into recordings.

Except for those that are output transformer coupled (most are not), tube preamps have high-ish output impedances and often have bass rolloff problems with amps having low input impedances, compromising compatibility. They also tend to have trouble driving long (>2 M.) interconnects, again limiting compatibility. The only inconvenience I have encountered with SS pre's concerns powering them down for electrical storms - tube preamps come back to life within a few hours, while a solid-state pre's need a lot longer.

Turning to your specific question, the issue with running a solid-state preamp with a tube preamp again comes back to cost. Just as it takes a very good (and thus very $$$) solid-state preamp to get past solid-state preamp problems, it likewise takes a lot of money to get into a tube amp that does not have typical tube amp problems, specifically, an inability to control woofers and non-linear frequency response due to impedance issues with dynamic (cone) loudspeakers - the amp has to have massive power supplies and most importantly, really good output transformers, which are really expensive. In the alternative, you can get a hell of a lot of performance from a relatively moderate-cost combo like an Audible Illusions 3A tube preamp with a Bryston or McCormack SS amp.

At the top end of the market, however, a solid-state pre is the way to go in my opinion. I run a very quiet solid-state preamp (battery powered, fully differential balanced Rowland Coherence II) with either solid-state (darTZeel) or triode tube (VAC Renaissance 70/70) amplifiers. The Rowland's output impedance is a really low 50 Ohms, which can even drive the darTZeel through its 50 Ohm input. My backup preamp is a solid-state ARC LS-3. I've owned some pretty decent tube preamps (Jadis, Hovland, CAT), I've heard many others, and love what they do well, but believe that, generally speaking, very high-end solid-state is best at the preamplification stage with either tube or solid-state amplification.
Put Klyne on the list for consideration;Stan's pre amps are highly regarded and build quality is first class;only I think you need to get off the couch,no remote as I recall
unless he has one in the works;been a while.
"Truly good sounding solid-state preamps....bla bla "

I thought the whole idea was "strait wire with gain" ?
Shouldn't a "really good" preamp shoot for nutrality and thus have no "sound"?
I share the same opinion as 6550c in that a preamp should be as neutral as possible. This is why I prefer using passive preamps. While I have had some nice active preamps in my system, and have sat and listened to many others, I always seem to gravitate back towards a passive design.