Amp choice for VA Mahlers

Good to hear from everyone on what works. Tricky to do a cost benefit analysis here. I live in London where i am seeing a GAMUT D200 mk2 at a good price. CAM350 may be available in continental europe. Theta out there. I am inclined to get a pre /proc that is good w music, possibly classe SSP30 (reasonable price) and move existing Marantz gear to secondary duty in my kids room (everyone gets an upgrade). The gamut is easy to get a hold of and I can almost visualise liking it, the classe is a bit of a stretch financially but I know I can fill in the back channels with some of there less expensive 2 channels or even my existing ROskans. I originally was totally dedicated to 2 channel and wondering if the 5.1 new formats were even worthwhile but I must admit that ever since I have the Malher s , I can truly hear a difference. I am willing to beleive that you dont have to exactly match all of the amps, it seems that if you are starting from nothing you may as well . I have the rel strata III but never run it with the Mahlers in 2ch since overkill. Have it on very lightly even with movies. I appreciate all of the feedback. I will make a point to come back and tell you what happens next.

Go for the GamuT D200 mk2.

Spend extra $$$ on a nice AC cord.
I would suggest a Kimber Palladium PK10 if you can afford it o a BMI Shark or a VD Nite w/SOL.

These cords are not cheap, but will make your GamuT sound a lot better. The D-200 with a stock cord is good, but with one fo the above AC cords it can be freakin amazing.

KF

Quigly, there are many good recommedations here. I currently have the Strauss being driven by a Threshold T400 with great success. I do not beleive, however, that you will get the full benefit of the Mahlers or a new amp while using a SSP. If you listen to a lot of music (I'm 80% music and 20% HT), I'd recommend a stereo preamp with a SSP bypass. There are many quality choices out there, Audio Research, BAT, Cary, Classe, Ayre, Sonic Frontiers, just to name a few. I own a Classe CP-60 which sounds better on music than any SSP I've owned or listened to. (I have owned units from Proceed and Classe and auditioned Anthem, Aragon, Krell). I have a Denon receiver for the center and surround channels and processing HT. Then I have the front L/R preamp outputs of the Denon feed into the SSP inputs of my CP-60, so I can use my Strauss as my fronts. I, for one, will never go back to the high end SSP category. If you are mostly HT and do not listen to much music, then you may be better served with a SSP.

Regards,
John

i mostly listen to music and am inclined to follow your advice to go with a good pre amp and integrate it into the setup. I could see going with the Gamut amp and one of the preamps you mentioned. There is a vk20 BAT pre although I get the impression that the tube BATS are more impressive. For AR I wouldnt know which ones have a bypass. I go look at there site and see whats available out there. There are some used CLasse cp60 could work and importantly their tech support say it can be rewired to 220v.
I had taken a view that HT needed to be good to be enjoyable whereas 2 channel can be taken far because your attention is 100% focused on the music and therefore one can really invest and appreciate the difference