Conrad Johnson vs. McIntosh Tube Gear

VAC is not "better still" in my opinion. Compared to either cj or Mac, VAC sounds no better (it typically sounds damn good though) and yields to both in terms of reliability. ARC is also worthy of consideration. Some of their better stuff is sonically peerless, but ARC would also yield to both cj and Mac in reliability.

With 96dB efficient speakers your biggest problem will be keeping the noise out. One of the preamps you are looking at has a gain of 25-27dB. You could end up with tubes going noisy or microphonic very often.

I would look for something about 14dB or less.

I had a C2200 that got traded in. It sounded quite nice. It's a big box with not a lot of parts in it considering what it costs. But still, it sounded great. It uses a lot of 12AX7's and that sucks because vintage ones are all about gone now. I like to tube roll and 12AX7's are expensive as hell.

I suggest you look at the inside of a preamp before you buy. Use Google Images and look at the innards and check the weight. Some companies are practically ripping people off in the last five years or so. A preamp can look good on the outside and sound great but have $100 worth of parts in them. Manufacturers know that and have turned preamps into profit centers.

What budget are you trying to keep it at? I see they are ribbons speakers, right? Are they BG?

FWIW, my cj ET5 is so full of expensive capacitors that you can barely find anything else.

I own Conrad Johnson and McIntosh gear. Both are great brands. That said they are sonically a bit different.

I would not consider Conrad Johnson to be sonically dry as a prior post stated. Conrad Johnson eliminated electrolytics in their preamps years ago. This provided significant clarity and reduced the smearing that electrolytics can cause when used in the power supply and signal path.

The result is that CJ produces deep imaging and also create a sense of the air in the room when playing back classical and jazz recorded with simple miking in actual acoustic space.

McIntosh on the other hand uses more traditional designs with electrolytics in the preamp and power amps and accordingly produce a more traditional soundstage. My McIntosh gear sounds great, but low level detail and room acoustics are not as easy to discern as they are on the CJ gear.

When you don't have both in the same room they both do a great job with music reproduction.

Finally my ModWright preamp seems to produce the most transparent sound of all but with imperfect source material it can reveal too many imperfections. This leads me to the conclusion that the type and quality of source material you listen to might impact your choices.