D’agostino preamp - unfortunate its SS?

Tubes! I love em! But I also dont Jam out like I used too. If all I listened to was mainly hard rock and classic rock and I wanted to listen really loud then all SS gear is probably going to give me what im looking for. But now that im a bit older I find myself listening to more Jazz and Blues. I have gone through several SS and tubed pre amps over the years, one thing remains constant for me though is my speakers (Dynaudio Contour 3.0) and amplifier (McIntosh MC352). Tubes inject tonal beauty with sustain and decay like no SS pre amp can, with that said, Tubes tend to not slam or hit as hard as solid state. THERE it is!


Matt M

>>  Are tubes preferred? <<
Not by me.

Good solid state gives up nothing to tube equipment, they are just slightly different sounds and both are valid, but i have found you never want to mix the two due to too frequent mismatches.

D.A. audio equipment and tube sound…. Hmmmm…. I’m guessing this sounds fast, deep bass, forward, with midrange bloom so to speak…. In my limited experience, this would be something like any big Krell amp, connected to some big Apogee speakers, with a sub that can go deep, like a REL with a steep 18dB roll off at say 50hz or below I’m guessing would do the trick. Any big Apogee flat panel can make any amp sound like it has tube flavor to it; in fact IMHO, the more neutral sounding, the better; regarding fowardness, these speakers can soften a bit of the forward-ness of Krell-like gear, which leads to, at least for me, a less fatiguing listening experience when listening for longer periods. The sub will bring the deep bass in as a flat panel speaker just doesn’t dip down into deep bass like a cone driver can. Wasted writing, maybe…. Likely….. Anyways, that’s my wooden nickel’s worth of input, hah!

onhwy61,
I'm fine with "going easy on newbies", but I have also decided that there is such a thing as a stupid question, especially when asked twice, as the OP has done here.