Charles, I apologize if that was the impression, there have certainly been some informed and cogent replies except that they were not addressed to the question at hand. I was just somewhat surprised by the fact that the subject heading - the search for a suitable high gain preamp for the SIT-3 quickly devolved from the first post into "you have the wrong speaker-amp combo". That was not what the poster was asking for or about, but since that appeared to way the thread was going, I threw in my two pennies worth on Maggies and their infamous power requirements. Frequently it's an issue of how the speaker behaves across it's impedance curve and the demands that makes on partnering amps. For example, driving Quad ESL 57's has never been about watts but finding amps that can cope with the ESL's wicked load impedance behaviour. After all, Peter Walker drove them with 15W amps. Similarly, I drive my Harbeth P3's with 10 watts (admittedly near field) from a Luxman SQ Integrated with great success. My SIT-3/20.7 run was simply an experiment, in normal existence , they are driven by 450W VAC amps, which is more appropriate. Someone once told me that "tube watts are not the same thing as SS watts and Class A watts are not the same thing as Class A/B watts". I think there's some truth to that. I am planning to match my SIT-3 up with Harbeth 30.2's but within a near field listening envelope and I am pretty confident it will work well, albeit not to head banging levels. I would still love to hear some thoughts from everyone on appropriate high gain preamps to pair with the SIT-3. The Modulus 3B has a ton of gain but customer service and reliability issues plague the Company. Happy to hear some input on that. Thank you.
