VAC Ren Mk III / Sig mkII Preamplifier with SS Amp

I'm using my Ren. Sig. Mk. II with Electrocompaniet Nemo monoblock amps (600 wpc @ 8ohms/1.2 khz @ 4 ohms) into a pair of SF Stradavari's & the sound is fantastic!
The Nemo's sound like very powerfull tube amps with a crystal clear (no glare) top end, a sweet, warm, lush midrange & bass to die for.
Once thought about selling it to open a slot in my rack as they are dual chassis, but what could I possibly replace them with?
Probably one of - if not the best tube pre amps ever made!

Thanks for your comment, Paladin. I guess noone but you use a VAC preamp with SS amp :-):-)

Based on the specs and your positive experience, I think it will work fine with any tube or SS amp.

Both VAC preamps are superb with Clayton amplifiers as well
I use M-300....sound is just superb....VAC preamplifiers are special in that they mate so well with most all SS and tube amps, especially VAC.

Dear Knghifi:

I can answer your question. VAC currently makes two preamps.

VAC's current best preamp, the "Signature Mark II", was formerly known as the Renaissance Signature Mk. II and is unusual for tube preamps in that it uses an output transformer. Output transformers on tube preamps eliminate the impedance mismatch issues that almost all tube preamps can have with solid-state amps, as well as eliminate the problems tube preamps can have driving long interconnect runs to amps. A tube preamp with output transformers is effectively like a solid-state preamp for purposes of output impedance - the VAC website says the output impedance is <150 Ohms from 20 to 20k Hz. It should be able to drive amps with 600 Ohm input impedances or less (mid 90's Rowland, professional equipment), which is to say that it will not have impedance mismatch problems and can drive virtually any solid-state amp. It likewise can drive very long interconnects without roll off.

VAC's other current production preamp, the "Renaissance Mk. III", does not appear to feature an output transformer, which would explain why its rated output impedance is listed as "300 Ohms" with no specification for bandwidth. It is likely the case that its output impedance into low frequencies is at least ten times higher, meaning that there will be low frequency roll off with certain solid-state amps featuring low input impedances (as a general rule, the output impedance of the preamp should be at least ten times lower than the input impedance of the amp at ALL audible bandwidths). The good news is that many if not most current production solid-state amps feature input impedances sufficiently high that there is no problem. That said, if you have a long cable run between your amp and preamp, you could very possibly face roll-off problems (as you would with 98% of all tube preamps - the problem is not unique to this VAC preamp).

Both VAC preamps are point-to-point wired, which is highly desirable and rare these days (for cost reasons, most manufacturers use boards). I love VAC equipment and have owned Renaissance amps for ten years.