Favorite Pre Amp and Amp with Vandersteen?

I have an Ayre V1xe amp and a K1xemp preamp into Vandersteen 5A's and are very pleased.

I like McCormack and Audio Research with Vandersteens.

I have the XP-10 pre and the X250.5 amp from Pass Labs with my Vandersteen 5A's. For my ears, an awesome combo.

When I owned the 3As, the Quciksilver V4s were a good match. I heard that for many years RV had Vandersteen at home. ARC sounded great at Rutans;s The CAT JL2 were a step up from the QS, but at 3-4x the price.

McCormack seems to be the long term SS recommendation, and the VS sure did sound spectacular with Ayre at RMAF. And the Aleph 2s sure were super with the 3As.

The surprise for me is Joe's mentioning the Music Reference RM10, not that it is not wonderful - I use it in the summer months with my Merlin VSMs - but I did not know the 2s were sensitive enough for 35 watts, but the RM10 is a gutsy little amp, relatively inexpensive, and reliable. Hardest thing would be to use amp that is so small, so cheap,l and allow yourself to believe it could do the job, but it might just surprise you and save you a lot of money.

Seems like you have a small coterie of brands to consider here.

I'm using a XP-10 with a McCormack DNA-225 with Quatro woods. The detail the Quatro's extract with this preamp is really nice. The buzzwords are micro dynamics and noise floor retrieval.

The only upgrade would maybe be a touch more bass impact. But, that's probably my "taste" and not accurate! To add bass and give-up the detail this preamp provides, no way.

Still, this unit is like a clear window to the music world, what's on the other side, and how it sounds, is up to the source quality. The XP-10 won't add make-up to even out the looks of your music, it plays it much more natural than my McCormack MAP-1, for instance. The MAP-1 is warmer on everything, but the color is acceptably smooth. Still it does require you to give-up the detail.

I will eventually try ODYSSEY KISMET amplifiers with my woods.