Tube Preamp with Solid State Amp?

I started building a listening room about 18 months ago.  I bought a NAD M12 pre/dac and NAD M22v2.  With my Tannoy DC8Ti speakers, the highs were too bright, the mids were too loud, the bass was just right.  I purchased a used Herron VTSP-3A tube pre amp and Audio Mirror Tubadour III SE DAC.  The sound is much more musical, with no loss of detail.   

Both the Herron pre amp and NAD power amp have gain controls.  After much futzing with both, and moving the speakers and my listening position, I found the Heron on low gain and NAD on mid gain gives me the best sound, with my speakers about 2.5' from the side walls and 3' from the front wall with a slight toe-in. 

The M22v2 is very nice sounding class D amp.   The Herron/NAD combination is working for now.

Trust your ears. I had the same quandary lately. I use Ice Power 1200AS2 based class D amp to drive my Canton Vento 896.2 floor standers with a Marantz receiver handling interim preamp duties. The Marantz does warm things up a bit, but I wanted to take things a bit further south of analytical.

I looked at stuff from PrimaLuna and Schiit. The EVO 100 preamp at $2K was still beyond my current budget and when I checked the used market, a mint Schiit Freya+ with an extra quad of tubes for $100 less than new, popped up, so I jumped on it. Still waiting on delivery.

The EVO 100 fits your budget or you could look at something the Freya+ level and spend some of the remainder on extra tubes to muck about with.

Mark

With very sensitive speakers, a Quicksilver integrated might do very nicely for $2k. 

Linear Tube Audio Z10 integrated would sound excellent with your Klipsch.

Tube pre and ss amp is great!

  Tubes smooth out the sound and add some distortion which adds depth, and soul

enjoy