Toobs + SS = x

Each comment is enlightening! Thanks ALL! I may even attempt a less than enlightening comment later this evening.

Redkiwi, I appreciate your not chastising me for quoting you out of context. Your follow-up was just the type response that I hoped for as I attempt to fine tune my system.

That's OK Ux4, and any comments made here will always be out of context - as Dekay indicates, what works in one context can never be assumed to be a universal rule. But if you take that view too far, we would be afraid to post any opinions at all here.

I am not against tube pres at all - just the notion of using a warm mushy one to "improve" things. This is all predicated on the fact that I have always found that ss power amps are a huge impediment to musical enjoyment. And I do not find that tube pres make them OK.

In fact if I used vinyl, I would be using a tube preamp now. (Sadly new vinyl supplies in NZ are almost impossible to get, meaning the way I like to keep sampling new music means vinyl is a dead option for me).

jeez, redkiwi - no winyl? how awful, seriously...

i get quite a musical sound from my electrocompaniet amps, but that doesn't mean i don't dream of a pair of big melos stereo tube amps! ;~)

regards, doug s.

I don't get it. When you think you got a good ss pre-amp, you argue "the sound is not cool, high is not edgy..." (isn't it like tube people say?). You put it in and then think you got problem fixed. How do you know your ss-pre is not "colored"? Maybe that particular good ss-pre you mention is the only "colored" ss same as tube, and you just love it. What's wrong with other people doing it by tube-pre?
Or you put on "colored" power amp to fix it?

Just kidding, we should fix the bottle-neck component.
Agree!
Just wonder if ss-pre + tube power is just one of good combinations you happen to encounter.
And it is not necessarily a "golden rule".

good combos can come from all s/s, all toob, or a mix. peraonally, i lean towards a mix or all-toob. only one golden rule: the one w/the gold makes the rules! ;~)

doug s.