Power Amp To Go With Cary SLP98P Preamp

I heard the 98 at a dealer powering a Parasound a21 and it sounded good- slightly better than the Cary 200.2- but I felt the '98 was the bottleneck, not the amps.   the sound was too thick and sluggish.  
perhaps tube rolling would fix that.  

Avanti1960 thanks for the feedback. So far my experience with it has been great. I am using the Primaluna Dialog 5 Power amp and I might just be used to that. Not a solid state fan as of yet so the quickness is nothing I am used to. I do like the great mids and air I am hearing right now however.

John Atkinson’s measurements of your preamp indicate that while it has a fairly low output impedance at mid and high frequencies its output impedance rises to a very high 6800 ohms at 20 Hz. That would not be a good match for the 22K input impedance of the 200.2 ES amplifier.

And in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if the thick and sluggish sound Avanti1960 described as resulting from a pairing of the SLP-98P with a Parasound A21 (33K unbalanced input impedance) was contributed to by the interaction of those impedances, and/or by other effects on the output stage of the preamp resulting from loading it too heavily. IMO you should look for a power amp having an input impedance of no less than 47K. (Your present amp and the other Cary amp you referred to have input impedances of 100K).

Also, JA’s statement in the preamp review that the rise to 6.8K "will prematurely and audibly roll off the bass with power amplifiers having an input impedance of much less than 20k ohms" is much too lenient IMO. I say that in part because the result with load impedances that are significantly higher than 20K, as well as lower than 20K, will be undesirable phase shifts in the bass region, in addition to the small amount of frequency response rolloff he focuses on.

Good luck. Regards,
-- Al

Wow almarg! Thanks for the info. I had no idea. Heard lots of good things about this Preamp. Should I trade it in or look for a different power amp. Any suggestions?