Tube Pre/ Class D Amp - Who has done it?


Open forum for those who have actually tried this.  Really curious to know who has been happy, or maybe unhappy, with a tube preamp driving a Class D amplifier?

Of course, tube pre with a solid state amp is a classic pairing for hard to drive speakers, especially ESL's.   This is a little different.   I'm really curious to know what pres and Class D amps have had great synergy.

erik_squires

I have an Atma-Sphere MP-3.3 tube preamp pushing Atma-Sphere Class D mono blocks and they're glorious. All the beauty of my previous Atma-Shpere M-60 amps without the 12 tube-per-monoblock paranoia. Speakers are Zu Druid Vs, not hard to drive at all but loving the headroom provided by 50 watts.

I have a Schiit Freya+ preamp with 6SN7 tubes feeding a PS Audio S300 class D amp into Harbeth 30.2 XD Speakers and a REL T/5x Sub. I like it.

 

I use an Aric Audio Super 6sn7 linestage with an Orchard Audio Starkrimson Ultra. 

I have used two hybrid integrated amplifiers in my second system:

  1. Rogue Sphinx v3
  2. Heaven 11 Billie v2 (current)

Speakers have been:  Zu Omen Monitors; Golden Ear BRX (current)

Sources are:  PS Audio SACD Transport; PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC; Technics SL 1500c TT.  

I like the system, don't quite love it.  It sounds very good and is perfectly fine, it just doesn't move me the way my main system does, which doesn't have components that are that much better.  

I know speaker set-up is part of the issue (on top of 5 foot high bookshelves).  I think the answer is an all tube amp, though I have been very distracted the last year or so.

 

Rich 

 

 

My Luxman CL-38uC preamp and my Red Dragon 500 mono-blocks sound wonderful together.