Tube and SS pairs

Not to make the question more complicated, but if your source was cd, preamp -SS, and amp- tube, would you then have more signal/information loss, maybe more harmonic distortion than a simpler, one time, digital to analog conversion?

On a different note, once I bypassed my preamp and connected my CD player to my SS amp with short directional audioquest cables and was amazed with the improvement - I had to be careful though with the recording level of the CD. Most CDs were too loud for this.

So the system I mentioned above, ARC REF 2 (Tube) + Pass X350 (SS) + Martin Logan Ascent i, the preamp seems to be dominant in how the system sounds and while the Pass has it's own sound changing the preamp or rolling or replacing tubes in the preamp has a more noticeable delta in sound.

A third system I have is made from ARC LS3 (SS) + VTA ST70 (tube) + Altec Model 19. The 19s are an easy load and the 35 WPC from the ST70 easily does the job. The LS3 has that ARC house sound and is quiet enough to be used with these sensitive speakers. Rolling tubes in the power amp can change the sound. Again the tube component dominates the sound.

The second system is an ARCLS25 (tube) + ARC Ref 110 (tube) + JBL 4430. While on the surface the 4430 seems like a simple two way studio monitor it's very sensitive to the amp driving it. I've had these for years and they are very forward sounding, with the wrong amp they can be too much. I was using an Adcom GFA 5802 (SS) and was pretty happy with it. I got the bug to try a big tube power amp and picked up an ARC VT100 (tube). Everything from the midrange on up I liked better than the Adcom. Percussion in particular. Problem was a lack of deep bass. Managed to find the Ref 110. With the KT120s it came with it had more bass but the thing sounded congested and floppy. Retubed with new 6550s and now I have about 90% of what I had with the VT100 plus nice articulate deep bass. But it also lost some of that presence that I liked.

So I guess where I'm going is the tube component will probably dominate the overall sound of the electronics in the system. Also as I said before matching a tube power amp and speakers might take a little more work.

Direct connect to your source is just cheating. Just kidding. I haven't really spent any serious time with that configuration.

 

@mrmb  's  response focuses on the point that there are no clear or absolute answers. The other posts are also confirming this. 

I believe conventional advice is Tube Pre > Solid State Amp  but IT Truly depends on your components and what you are trying to accomplish.

As an example, a recent demo of a tubed integrated demonstrated this for me. A Solid State Pre bypassing the integrated's Pre was superior (to my ears / in my system) driving the integrated's tube power amp section.

Regarding the previous post, all that experiment demonstrated was the SS preamp had a better quality than the built-in pre I the integrated. Nothing more. Try that same experiment and insert an ARC Ref 6, for example, instead of that SS pre and the results will be significant different.