Tube Preamp/solid pwr amp or solid pre/ tube pwr

Lots of advice offered both good and bad. You might look to see how many own N802's. I did, and they all own something else. So, there's a lot of conjecture going on.

The idea of Classe being a dream match is just that, a dream. I had Classe amps and I had decent sound. Ultimately too lean through the midbass and lower midrange and a propensity for midrange glare. The W4S amp trumps them in every category.

The VAC tube amp is not bad at all on the N802, better then the Classe but not as good as the W4S.

Let me make it clear, I'm not saying the W4S is the best SS amp, it is the best match I've heard on the N802 coupled with a tube preamp. My W4S amp does have the WBT output terminals and I use a power cord that cost as much as the amp so that may skew the results of someone else using a different configuration. The results speak/sound for themselves.

04-17-12: Bondmanp
I have no idea what the impedance matching issue is for SS preamps with tube power amps.

Usually none. Solid state preamps will usually have relatively low output impedance, and tube power amps will usually have relatively high input impedance, which is an ideal combination. The higher output impedance of many (but not all) tube preamps, and the rise in that output impedance that will often occur at deep bass frequencies as a result of the output coupling capacitor they commonly use, combined with the relatively low input impedance of many solid state power amps, will cause the deep bass rolloff you experienced, and/or other frequency response anomalies.

Regards,
-- Al

Speaker matching is definitely a priority and I agree with Raquel and Almarg's points. My uncle who has a very large 2 channel room with Magenplanar speakers is using a tube pre from Audio Research and Threshold SA/1 monoblocks. The sound from his system was divine. In a nearfield set-up I had really sweet sounding music from a SS Accuphase C-200 preamp and a Baldwin 6L6 tube amp. The speakers were KEF 103/3s at the time.

I'm going to try and see if the Accuphase will match up well with a Jolida 502P tube amp. I'm wondering if anyone else has tried matching an Accuphase preamp to a tube amp.

I'd like to try a tube preamp with an SS amp but I really like the SS preamps I have now.

I think I would go nuts with an all separates tube system. Tubes to roll in your sources, tubes to be rolled in your preamp, various tubes to be rolled in your amp. To many combinations to worry about and/or keep track of. Argh!!

Let me refine my response. Like all of the rest of you I don't think that every tube amp, can drive difficult speaker loads. There are frequently powerful tube amps that will work, but perhaps not optimally with all speakers. If you have a reasonable speaker, that permits tube power amp use, then I strongly advocate their use. The sound is quite special IMO and is not dramatically altered in quality by an SS pre.

Another vote for tube pre/SS amp combo unless you go all tubes with a tube amp and tube preamp...

I happily lived with a B&K ST140 amp and Music Reference RM5 mkII preamp with ProAc Studio 1's for many years. I then got a McIntosh MC225 tube amp to replace the B&K and liked it even more...I then tried a PS Audio 4.6 with the Mac tube amp and really didn't like it at all.