What tube pre-amps pair well with Pass amps?

+1 @jake18aa
I felt the same when I matched up my Pass XA25 with an Aric Audio preamp! This combination makes a wonderfully musical, holographic, and natural presentation of the music that I find extremely satisfying!

Atma-Sphere MP-3 Pre-Amp fully loaded will give you about 80-85% Of the Mighty MP-1 Performance.


I used to own VAC pre-amps before they are nice and warmer sounding but overall i still like the Atma-Sphere better. 

When comparing Focals and any amp, pay particular attention to the mid bass.

They tend to be above-average demanding and therefore suppressing output this region. There's no right answer, you might like it suppressed, giving you a built-in loudness curve or matching better with the room.

Given this combo, old school CJ or Sonic Frontiers.

billtro
What tube pre-amps pair well with Pass amps?

Many don’t work with quite a few Pass amps as many Pass amps are low input impedance, and a lot of tube preamps are high’ish output impedances
You need to look at output impedance v input impedance 1 to 10 ratio or more for good impedance match. Otherwise it can start to become a voltage divider and "can" squash dynamic impact as well as output level.

Cheers George