DECWARE.....ZTPRE anyone have any expeiriance with one ?

Al...Thanks for pointing that out, didn't even think to look at that. There is no way I am giving up my bottom octave. This is the age old problem of trial and error with changing components. Buy it, dump it, take the hit...buy it, dump it, take the hit. Deware has no dealers so I can't even give a dealer a deposit to try it out for the weekend. One would think however with the schematics posted, Steve Deckert would have been called out on this in his forums.Taking all of this into consideration (And this goes out to everyone) what are your recommendations for a tube pre for this setup. As a side note I really did like the idea of being able to set the output gain to my liking.

Taking all of this into consideration (And this goes out to everyone) what are your recommendations for a tube pre for this setup.

Given the reasonably high input impedance of your amps, even if that value is only half of the specified 75K when they are used in bridged mode (which is very conceivable), and their slightly above average gain, you have a very wide range of possibilities. Given that the sensitivity of your speakers is also somewhat above average (apparently specified as 95 db/1 watt/1 meter) I would just suggest avoiding line stages having highish gains, above say 10 or 12 db or so. Especially if you are using digital sources.

Good luck. Regards,
-- Al

I owned the ZT Pre for a while and it was just OK. It wasn’t long before I started looking for another preamp. I just recently got a new Linear Tube Audio Micro ZOTL Preamp and holy crap it’s good. It makes the ZTPre sound like it was made to work with a Bose clock radio.

FWIW, I would suggest the OP asking Steve Deckert, the owner of DEC, this question. He is the equipment designer there and I’d be very surprised if he made a mistake as simple as put forth in the above response. REALLY surprised.

Read here if you want to know if Deckert just might know something about this issue:

http://www.decware.com/paper20.htm

And this is "dumbed down" for we who play the music not MAKE the music.

I own a couple pieces of Decware equipment. Not the pre amp your asking about but I can say Steve has always been easy to reach on the phone and easy if not fun to talk with. Hit him up.