DECWARE.....ZTPRE anyone have any expeiriance with one ?


Thinking of replacing my Classe pre to feed two CA400's in monoblock mode with a pair of Focal Grande Utopia's
128x128viking62
Taking all of this into consideration (And this goes out to everyone) what are your recommendations for a tube pre for this setup.

Given the reasonably high input impedance of your amps, even if that value is only half of the specified 75K when they are used in bridged mode (which is very conceivable), and their slightly above average gain, you have a very wide range of possibilities. Given that the sensitivity of your speakers is also somewhat above average (apparently specified as 95 db/1 watt/1 meter) I would just suggest avoiding line stages having highish gains, above say 10 or 12 db or so. Especially if you are using digital sources.

Good luck. Regards,
-- Al

I owned the ZT Pre for a while and it was just OK. It wasn’t long before I started looking for another preamp. I just recently got a new Linear Tube Audio Micro ZOTL Preamp and holy crap it’s good. It makes the ZTPre sound like it was made to work with a Bose clock radio.
FWIW, I would suggest the OP asking Steve Deckert, the owner of DEC, this question. He is the equipment designer there and I’d be very surprised if he made a mistake as simple as put forth in the above response. REALLY surprised.

Read here if you want to know if Deckert just might know something about this issue:

http://www.decware.com/paper20.htm

And this is "dumbed down" for we who play the music not MAKE the music.
I own a couple pieces of Decware equipment. Not the pre amp your asking about but I can say Steve has always been easy to reach on the phone and easy if not fun to talk with. Hit him up. 

I have heard the new ZTPre "V6" design, paired with decware 6Wpc monoblocks and decware speakers, and I can definitively say that it is not rolled off on the bottom end.  It's an excellent and unique dual mono preamp design.  If you need a tube preamp that has true balanced output this is the preamp for you.

Having said that, I have no idea how well this pre will work with your solid state monoblock amps.  I would suggest that you follow fourwnds advice and contact Steve Deckert at decware.  Steve is a stand up guy and a wealth of information.