ARC amplifier with Conrad Johnson Preamp

I have a PrimaLuna 400 preamp and a CJ Premier 11 amp. Sounds fantastic 

Using the Cardas adaptors will not do anything to the sound. You can always change amps in the future. But the second part of your post has not been answered.

By shelf speakers, I assume you mean monitors. What is your budget and music preference?

@cellorover thats really good to know. My only concern is how it will impact the input impedance?

basically I’m looking for monitors , I listen almost to all type of music so really mixed genres overall. I thought about some Sonus Faber monitors or Proacs. Badger is around 3k.

Im trying to settle on a preamp between the :

CJ premier 14 , BAT 31SE , ARC Ref3

@cleeds i guess you are probably right about matching a balanced pre.

the ref 5 non se version is far away from my budget, and even the ref3 is stretching me in a way that I’ll have really small budget for speakers . 

the only balanced pre I can think of rn which entering is BAT vk31 se

The CJ will be more open and cleaner than the BAT. Cannot comment on the ARC.