Grandetech
Tube pre with pass through, huh?
That shouldnt be too difficult a thing to come by these days as many makers are putting that into their designs for the HT systems everyone is doing now.
Personally, I feel the two, stereo and HT should remain separate things for consistencys sake
Ive been unable to make a pair of tube mono blocks sound like solid state nor do I care too
then with some pass through preamps, they need to be on, and theres that added pair of interconnects too. In any case, it should be a simple task to find one I suspect.
I have a Thor preamp
they aint being made now. The designer took a powder on us
but they are a stellar item sonically speaking. Some of them were made with pass throughs for HT.
Mark Mickelson had one for a time too
. Then went to a VTL 7.5. In his review of the VTL 7.5 he compared it to the Thor saying it was no better sonically but offered more versatility. I would think the VTL 6.5, would offer a great deal of the 7.5s performance for far less
but thats sheer speculation.
I would also think the aspect to look for in a tube preamp is its inclination to the musicality aspect, over the speed and resolution facet
which is what I suspect you seek. I wasnt terrigbly impressed by the new CJ preamps I heard. They sounded far more akin to solid state than to tube designs. I hear some of the older CJ pres were far more about the warmth and midrange though.
Im really at a loss to add much here for you to investigate in this regard. I will say, having owned a BAT VK 5i, that either it or the VK5i SE should certainly do what you want and are well within your price range with lots left over
if you dont mind buying older gear.
Perhaps VAC should also be on your short list, and maybe even Quadd
with $6K in hand for a preamp Id still look at the VTL stuff, then VAC
and probably ART Audio & ARC
but thats just me.
