Best Preamp to Pair with Acurus A-250 and Vandersteen 3 Signature Speakers

Let’s start with this — what improvements are you looking for and what sound characteristics are most important to you, and are you open to maybe selling the Acurus and go with an integrated stereo amp?  Personally, I’d be hesitant to pair a $5000 preamp with your amp whereas a $5000 integrated may well give you significant improvements in both areas.  Food for thought.  

I owned 3A-SIG for ten years…. there are many competently engineered amplifiers that drive them well. The Odyssey is certainly one and an excellent value. Anything Nelson Pass made in 100 wpc range. I used a Mac, Ayre, Quicksilvers, Aesthetix…and Threshold. The Ayre and Aesthetix are zero or low NFB designs which pair well w Vandersteens. My buddy in Atlanta runs his with a hybrid Music Reference amp. 

The 3 is really a beast, while it’s very full range, it rewards an amp with grip and control. 

For $5K you can get excellent amp and preamp…both….

If I were you, hold off on selling that Acurus amp.

Team it up with a tubed preamp, that has a low output impedance.

If I were you, hold off on selling that Acurus amp.

i disagree in this case

i would get whatever money you can from selling the acurus and put that towards something better sounding

the tubed preamp idea into the acurus, driving vandy 3a’s, is bad advice in my opinion.... you can spend alot of money on a tube preamp (good ones aren’t cheap) trying to feed the acurus and be worse off sonically and money-wise -- than going with a decent modern ss integrated

the vandy sig 3a is a smooth sounding speaker needing power and bass control, there are many fairly powerful, decent modern ss amps or integrated (ones without old school solid state sonic nasties) that will do very well and are more moderately priced than a good tubed linestage