Tube Vs. SS Preamps

Tube rectified,regulated 6sn7 tube pre,with class A amps is a wonderful combination.  To my ears,sounds great.  Absolutely no listening fatigue.  

When I decided to get really invested, I bought a demo McIntosh C2600 tube preamp and matched it to a pair of MC611 mono blocks. Could not be more pleased with the results. FWIW

Building my system, I wanted components that just played what was there.  The solid state preamp quit.  I have horn speakers with a DAC that puts out 2.0V.  My amp is at full output with 1.25V.  I worked with Vacuum Tube Audio and have a passive tube buffer playing right now.  It changed the sound in a pleasant way.  Less sharpness on the top,pleasing vocals, piano(properly recorded) sounded better but not the full tube sound.  With minor changes this preamp can be turned into a 6AU7 based preamp.  However, I may not want to use it that way because of gain.  When streaming there is so much difference in volume of each song that sometimes, I still only need 1/4 volume.other times 1/2 volume.  I have not worked on audio equipment so I am scared to try experimenting myself!  Bottom line is I am happy with the sound right now. 

+2 On the Schiit Freya + preamp.

One more thing worth mentioning--some tube linestages do not play well with some solid state amps even when the output impedance of the linestage is low enough that the two should be electrically compatible.  I don't know why that is the case, but, on several occasions, I found this to be true.  The "bad" sound is an overly warm and muddled sound that is also dynamically constricted (the so-called tube sound on steroids).  It might also just be the case that tube linestages, as is the case with all tube gear, vary much more in sound than do top solid state gear which tends to sound much more uniform.  A trial is before purchase is highly recommended for all gear, and it is particularly required for tube gear.