Tubes Through Solid State

I've found that my ARC Ref3 sounds great into my Krell MDA/KSA amps. This series of Krells has a tube like midrange and treble plus the awesome bass of the Krells. The Ref 3 compliments and enhances the quailities of the Krells adding depth and imaging. With the Krells, one doesnt't have to worry about tube failure, but the heat issue is a wash.
In the final analysis, each to his own.

My experience was that a tube pre can work very well with SS power...

My experience has been tubed pre into ss amp. Ran this combo for years and liked it very much; kinda the best of both worlds. Equipment wise various cj tubed pre's and cj ss amps. Last combo was a cj premier 16lsII into a cj premier 350. Having said that I now use a Cary SLI-80F1 direct coupled integrated and I am very happy and have not looked back.

CHuck

Is there an analog component to your question? I'm just curious why you asked here.

I've always felt this kind of mix was a temporary fix for another problem.

Each piece of gear in your system contributes to the sound output in a different (but equally important) way. You choose your amp to best match your speakers, or so the theory goes. With most amps, you can be more flexible with regards to preamp choices.

For many years I was running Apogee planar or hybrid ribbon speakers, so I used high-power SS amps and a tube preamp. I enjoyed those systems a lot. Later and with different speakers I paired a CJ tube amp with a CJ SS pre. I also enjoyed that system. For the last year or so I have been using an all-tube SET integrated with horn speakers. And I love this system.

What's the moral of the story? It's all good, and there are no hard and fast rules. If it sounds good to you, it's good.